Just Another Gin Joint
by liptonrm
Summary: John got Sam at Stanford and they disappeared. Dean searched but was never able to find them. Three years later the world has changed and everything is about to come undone.
1. Of All the Gin Joints

Disclaimer: Definitely not written for profit, especially since none is being made.

Author's Note: This would not have been possible without the amazing support of my stupendous friends Baylor, Hiyacynth, and Dodger Sister. They've beta'd and flailed and held my hand through the sometimes arduous writing process. This one's all for them. And a big thanks has to go to the creators and mods of SPN_J2_BigBang. I never would've gotten my ass in gear and finished this puppy without this great challenge. It's been a great time and I really hope I get the chance to dance to your tune again.

Summary: In 2005 Sam Winchester's fiancée burned to death on the ceiling of their apartment. Sam would have died, too, if not for his father, John Winchester, who arrived just in time to pull him out of the fire. Then they both vanished. And regardless of how hard he looked, Dean was not able to find them.

Three years later Dean is living in Nebraska and trying to reshape his life. But all of that is about to be endangered as he comes face-to-face with his family and the secrets they've been keeping from him.

A _Supernatural_ Gen AU inspired by the movie _Casablanca_. Co-starring Victor Henricksen, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, Meg Masters, Bela Talbot, Calvin Reid, and Ash.

**Part One – Of All the Gin Joints in All the Towns in All the World**

The bright prairie sun glared down from a merciless sky. Victor Henricksen shielded his eyes against the light as he stared over the rural airstrip to the cracked, brown grass that stretched endlessly beyond it.

He wiped a hand over his forehead and grimaced at the thick layer of sweat came off, the cracked asphalt directing all of the summer heat straight at him. It just figured that he'd look like hell on the day that someone might finally show up to get him out of the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Nebraska.

His sour mood deepened and he turned to pace along the concrete curb that was the only barrier between the runway and the one-story box that served as the airstrip's terminal. A year ago he wouldn't have worried about what some Grand High Asshole from D.C. thought of his appearance. A year ago he would've told the ASAC that he was too busy tracking down psychopaths to play nanny to the Director's latest pet, but that was a year ago. Now he was willing to kneel down and pucker up for whatever ass presented itself just so long as it got him out of here and back to where the real action was. There was nothing worse than cooling your heels at the rear while your nation was under attack.

The squeak of a hinge and a blast of cold air announced that he wasn't alone on the tarmac. Victor stopped pacing but didn't turn towards the newcomer. "Any news?" he asked, his gaze still lost somewhere over the prairie.

"The flight controller just got off the line with our plane. It should be here in a couple minutes." Reid's voice was level and dispassionate. Cal's unruffled professionalism was one of the things Victor admired most about him. He'd seen his partner's unflappable stare unnerve the craziest sociopaths and it had the added bonus of doing the same to any other law enforcement that got in their path. It had also kept Victor from nuking his career when he started going stir-crazy a week into their present assignment, which was definitely a bonus.

Victor grunted in acknowledgement and shielded his eyes to look up at the sky. Towards the southeast a different shade of bright slowly resolved into a small plane. He and Reid waited in silence as it grew larger and eventually touched down on the far end of the field. It taxied up to their position draped in the smell of jet fuel and the high-pitched whine of the slowing engine.

By the time the stairway was in place by the plane's side the hatch was already open. A woman stepped out, her features washed out by the midday shine. She took a moment at the top of the stairs, either surveying her new location or letting her eyes adjust to the sun, before making her way down with sure, easy steps.

Henricksen and Reid stood shoulder to shoulder as their Very Important Babysitting Job made her way across the tarmac. She was smaller than he'd expected, her peroxide-blonde hair cut short. Her suit was standard government attire and she wore it with the kind of ball-busting attitude that he recognized from some of the best, and worst, agents he'd ever worked with.

He pasted a smile on his face and stepped forward. She could stick one of those pointy high-heeled shoes right up his ass and he'd thank her for the privilege so long as it got him out of the damn cornfield.

"Ms. Masters," he said in the voice he reserved for victims and his mama. "Welcome to Nebraska." He held out his hand and she grabbed it in a firm, satisfying handshake.

"Agents Henricksen and Reid," Masters replied. Her tone was professional but there was a glint in her eye that made it seem like she was laughing at a private joke, and the joke was on them. "It's a pleasure to meet you both. It's always nice to meet agents about whom the Director only has good things to say."

"That's nice to hear," Reid commented as he stepped forward to shake her hand. The casual observer would've only heard respectful courtesy in his tone but Victor knew him well enough to catch the wariness underneath. Yeah, they'd have to be on their toes around this one.

"The car is this way." Victor gestured towards the terminal and then led the way out to the parking lot. They walked through the dim building, a whiff of cool, recycled air, and then back out into the sun. Reid grabbed their visitor's bag and headed towards the trunk while Victor unlocked the car. He slid behind the wheel, momentarily grateful for the shady spot they'd parked in because for once the seat wasn't hot enough to fuse flesh to vinyl. He started the car as his passengers slid into their respective places, Masters sitting up front as if it were her rightful spot.

The car staggered as he pulled it out onto the pothole that used to be a highway. He knew, from the bitching he overheard down at the bar, that most of the money that had once gone to prosaic things like road repair and municipal improvement was being funneled to first responders and anti-terrorist programs. Victor could overlook a couple potholes if it meant that those terrorist sons of bitches who'd caused all of those deaths in Tulsa, Arlington, and Eugene were brought to justice, not that any of the locals would listen if he said anything. Anyway, making the point would only get him kicked out of yet another bar in the area, and that would suck worse than losing his favorite watering hole to his goddamn temper ever had.

Reid said he was learning wisdom and forbearance in his old age. Victor just thought he was learning how to give up.

Masters stared out the window at the empty farmland that ranged beyond them. Acres that should have been chock full of healthy crops were brown and dead, testament to a drought that was starting to make the Dustbowl look bountiful by comparison. Her lips curved slightly as they flew by the shell of one particularly forsaken farmhouse.

"Are you enjoying the Heartland?" The gentle mocking in Masters' voice easily carried over the rushing noise of wheels running over pavement.

"It's a blast," Henricksen replied, deadpan. He didn't know what the woman across from him wanted. His inability to get a read on her put his teeth on edge.

"How are things in North Platte, Agent?" Masters' smile morphed and for a second the image of a kid poking at an animal in a zoo flashed through Victor's mind.

"Things have been fairly status quo," Reid replied, his voice level. Victor caught Reid's gaze in the rearview mirror and tried hard not to roll his eyes at the message he received. He knew that calm, cool, and collected was the way to play the game.

"Crime's at an average level," Reid continued. "Though there's been a lot more transient activity in the past few months. People seem to be on the move and they're all traveling through Nebraska."

Masters' teeth flashed in response to the droll amusement that Reid had layered into the end of his report. "And you boys thought you'd been sent here for nothing." Her grin sharpened into something sharp and predatory. "Tell me about the transients."

Reid's voice droned over an explanation of statistics and Nebraska population averages. Victor's mouth flattened into a hard, stiff line as his old friend, the sick bile of betrayal, bubbled in his chest. He'd been working his ass off, bringing in the bad guys and doing it all by the book, when he'd been punted off to kick his heels while other, inferior agents made their careers tracking down terrorist shitheads. He'd given the Bureau everything he had, including three marriages, and this was how they repaid him. And cute comments wouldn't change any of it, didn't matter how intriguingly they hinted at some kind of redemption.

Victor pulled the car up into the gravel lot that provided parking for the lopsided cinderblock building that was what passed for a federal building in the boondocks. He stood still beside the car for a second, letting the others precede him inside. He needed a second to breathe, to remember that he couldn't afford to burn any bridges. And he could trust Cal not to steal the investigation away from him while he was pulling his shit together.

Stepping into the building was like stepping from a sun room into a sauna; the air was still and oppressive and smelled vaguely like paint thinner with a mold chaser. He'd spent too many hours sitting in his cluttered office with nothing but the whir of the fan and the clattering rhythm of Reid's typing for company, praying for release or, at the very least, a goddamn air conditioner. He had a hard time believing that Super Max was worse than this.

Reid and Masters were in what passed for their conference room. A medium-sized rectangular table was jammed against one wall and a whiteboard hung on the opposite wall. It was all painted a bland shade of government beige without even a window to break up the monotony. The room was crowded even when no one was in it.

The harsh bulb from the fluorescent on the ceiling washed Reid out, dulling hair, skin, and suit into grayish blur, even as it accentuated Masters' sharp angles. Though they seemed deep in conversation, Victor was hardly in the room when Masters grabbed her bag and started unzipping it. Victor raised his eyebrow in Reid's direction but Reid only flattened his mouth and shook his head minutely in response. At least she hadn't let anything important slip while Victor was pulling himself together.

"And now for the main event," Masters said as she pulled a folder out with a showy flick of her wrist. Victor and Reid stepped up to the table as she began laying the folder's contents out for them to see.

Her fingers drummed on the top page that was lined with tiny type interspersed with hazy pictures and handwritten notes. "We recently received urgent intel about a big player in the terrorist underground." She pulled a few sheets out of the pile, duplicates of the same page, and handed one each to the agents that flanked her. "This is Sam Winchester, and from what we can tell he's right up at the top of the organization."

Victor carefully studied the individual pictured on the page. The man had a vaguely uncomfortable smile plastered on his face that was standard on drivers' licenses and other photo I.D.s. He looked like any number of other young white men: longish brown hair framed an unguarded face. But Victor well knew how deeply ordinary faces could conceal monsters.

"A year and a half ago Winchester was an honor's student at Stanford when his girlfriend died in a fire and he fell of the map. We don't think it's a coincidence that full-scale attacks started a mere six months later."

"How do you go from Stanford to mass murder?" Victor mused, trying to organize the logistics in his mind.

"Oh, Winchester wasn't your normal Stanford student." Masters handed over another page. This one contained a grainy picture snagged from a security camera; you could barely make out an imposing figure with dark hair and a patchy beard that was more of a result of days on the run than it was a fashion statement. "This is John Winchester, Sam's father. He's spent the better part of Sam's life involved with one paramilitary group or another. He raised his boys on the run, dragging them from one part of the country to another while he chased down one nutjob crusade after another."

She passed around a third print-out, this one displaying an antique revolver, a Colt if Victor wasn't mistaken. "They've been remarkably good at staying one step in front of us but we have reason to believe that they'll come out of the woodwork for this." Masters grinned at him over the top of the paper, an off-putting, sharklike twist to her lips. "The Winchesters are professionals but they're also certifiable. A large portion of their shared psychosis revolves around an irrational belief in the supernatural. They believe they're fighting evil and that this gun will supposedly kill anything. They'd do anything to get they're hands on it."

"And they think this gun is in North Platte," Reid plainly stated.

Masters winked at him. "Got it in one. A very reliable source has informed us that Sam will be coming into town today to negotiate for it. Now it's up to you to figure out where he might be heading."

Victor's mouth tightened in annoyance. Sometimes he thought it would be awfully nice to tell the Bureau to go fuck itself but he'd never been stupid enough to actually say it, even when they expected him to perform a goddamn miracle. He started sifting through the papers on the table while Reid asked Masters questions about the Winchesters' activities, a background hum he could ignore.

His fingers uncovered a page buried toward the bottom of the stack and he froze. He knew that face. He pulled the paper out and read it over, rage solidifying in his stomach with every word.

That son of a bitch. Victor remembered the first time he'd walked into Harvelle's, beat-down and ornery from yet another day kicking his heels on the periphery while his colleagues, friends and enemies both, were on the frontlines of his country's war on domestic terrorism. The guy behind the bar had looked like any of the other rednecks who'd sneered at Victor, but he only nodded his head and handed over drinks without any commentary. By the end of the night they'd both been yelling insults at the idiot umpire on the television. It was the first time in North Platte that Victor hadn't felt the need to prove himself to a roomful of strangers.

Over the next couple of months Dean had shared car tips and Victor had demonstrated how to patch some troublesome plumbing. And then there'd been that time when they'd stood up against a bunch of drunk truckers who'd gotten out of control. He could still feel Dean's sure presence at his back and see his grinning face as they'd kicked those assholes to the curb. It had been righteous.

Seeing that same smile, that damn cocky smirk, radiating out at him in black and white hit him straight in the solar plexus. Brittle anger sparked like a taser pulse down his nerves. He'd trusted him.

He shoved the paper at Masters, interrupting her in the middle of a word. "If Sam's coming to town he'll probably want to visit his brother. And I know where to find him."

Masters smiled at him, sharp and bright. Victor grinned back, brittle and tight. He was going to get Dean Winchester, and when he did he'd make it hurt.

* * *

Jo slammed the door of her dusty blue truck. Stupid piece of shit. The one day she absolutely could not afford to waste time dealing with some dumbass mechanical problem and it goes ahead and stalls out on the side of the road.

She growled and shoved the hood open. The engine clicked slowly as it cooled and sputtered a little, almost like a dying gasp. She started poking around, pulling at wires and examining connections with a practiced eye. Her mom had helped her rustle up the cash buy the truck when she'd been in high school; it had been a kind of bribe, something her mom had hoped would get her mind off of hunting and onto more acceptable teenager things. Not that Jo was ever going to let herself be cajoled into anything like that. Normal and acceptable had never been her thing.

The truck hadn't been new when she bought it and she was only holding it together now with duct tape and a prayer. She pulled gently on one of the coolant lines and hissed in exasperation when liquid trickled out through a crack. Damn it, Dean had promised that he'd take care of that. He'd probably lost track of time mopping up the bar like the good little boy he was.

Her passenger, the reason she'd been clattering down a backcountry road in the first place, came up beside her, leaned down and peered under the hood. She glanced at him, trying to gauge how the unexpected stop may have affected his mood, but a hunk of his longish hair hung down like a curtain between them. He'd been quiet for the whole ride, the only bead she'd been able to draw on him was that he was intense and focused on something else entirely. She had a feeling that her presence hardly even registered.

"Is there someone you need to call?" His voice didn't fit her expectations, too calm and quiet. She'd been prepared for thunder, and here he sounded like just some other guy.

"Nah," she drawled, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I've got some stuff in the back that should fix it up long enough to get us where we're going. It'll just take a second."

And it was a good thing she didn't have to go whining to her mother. She could only imagine what that phone call would be like, especially after her mom'd told her in no uncertain words that she didn't want her getting mixed up in hunting and she especially didn't want her so much as glancing in the general direction of that group of hunters that some called government conspiracy nutjobs but others, Jo included, thought of as the Resistance.

There was something seriously wrong going on in the good ol' U.S. of A. and Jo didn't have to live in a big city or have a friend get carted off to a detention center, never to be seen again, to know that someone had to do something. And she was ready to take a stand, no matter what, even if it meant chauffeuring Sam Winchester around behind her mother's back and against all common sense. She'd never put much stock in prudence, anyway.

She slammed the back gate of her trunk shut, duct tape in one hand and a gallon of water in the other. Sam was still standing in front of the truck but now he was peering off down the road, his hand over his eyes to shield them from the setting sun. He turned at the sound of her feet on the gravel, a strange, almost melancholy look slipping over his face.

"Here." Jo handed him the water jug. "Hold this while I patch up that hose."

A quick grin lit up his face. "That I can do."

She shook her head in confusion and turned back to the engine. One second he'd be withdrawn and serious and the next he'd act like any other guy her age. She ripped off a piece of duct tape and carefully started winding it around the worn rubber. She just didn't know what to make of him.

He'd never once asked about his brother.

She poured water into the radiator, twirled the cap back on, and slammed the hood shut. There was enough water in there now to make it back to the Roadhouse, at least. She swung up into the cab, keeping the gallon jug with her up front, just in case. She looked out and caught Sam staring at the horizon again, his mouth pinched tight.

Jo opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong but the words wouldn't come out. For all of her bravado she felt a sudden, deep certainty that there were some things she shouldn't know, even if he would share them.

"You ready to go?" she finally asked.

Sam turned back to the car. He took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah," he said, his voice strained, and climbed in.

The engine turned over with a cough and she shifted into gear. They would get where they were going soon enough.

* * *

A look of disgust flashed over Bela's face as she walked into Harvelle's Roadhouse. She was not terribly fond of any part of the States that wasn't situated on one coast or the other. There was something so uncouth and grubby about the Heartland and the placid, unimaginative creatures that inhabited it. Unfortunately, the unpleasant reality of her occupation frequently required her to make the excursion.

At least this time the compensation would be worth the discomfort. She could feel the reassuring weight of the Colt where it rested safely in a concealed inner pocket. It had been a fortuitous day indeed when that little pistol had found its way into her possession. It was amazing the kinds of people who would come sniffing after such a treasure.

She blinked and her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the bar. Surprisingly enough, Harvelle wasn't behind the bar and neither was her intolerable daughter. The absence of both was a relief; Bela simply was not in the mood to handle either Ellen's silent air of folksy superiority or Jo's prickly attitude. She might have been compelled to shoot them both, but that would most certainly cause difficulties with her buyer.

The head of a man in a ragged, sleeveless flannel shirt jerked up off a nearby table at the sound of her heels clicking on the floor. He jumped out of his seat, the matting on his head that she could only assume was his hair bouncing as he did so.

He grinned at her, wide and lecherous. "You've gotta be Bela." He walked over to her, stumbling only slightly over the chair in front of him. "You look just like they said you would. All class." He held out his hand. "I'm Ash."

She let herself take it and was rewarded with a sweaty handshake. "Charmed," she replied, her tone brisk and curt. "I was led to understand that there was a demon-proof safebox somewhere on the premises. I would like to hire it, for an appropriate fee, of course."

"Sure," Ash drawled. "It's in the back."

He led her past the bar, through a dingy kitchen and into a cramped hallway. He crouched down and pried up bit of paneling near the back, she caught a quick glimpse of the Devil's trap burnt onto the back of the wood before he set it aside. He pulled out a battered cashier's box and handed it to her. "Just go ahead and put your stuff in here. It has all of the hocus pocus stuff inscribed in the metal, plus it's pure iron, which is always a bonus. Also—" he pushed on a hidden button and a keyboard slid out of the top. "I've modified it so that you can punch in any security code you want. That way you can be extra sure that no one but you can get in it."

She raised an eyebrow, impressed in spite of herself. "Indeed," she said and accepted the box.

He preened under her gaze; she must have put more approval in her tone than she thought. "Service is our number one priority," he joked, his smile only dimming slightly when she refused to indulge him.

"If you would please turn around." She gestured with her hand as if speaking to a child. "I do require privacy."

He frowned but complied. When his back was turned Bela carefully removed the Colt from her pocket and slid it into the box. With a click she turned the lock and then input her code. The only person who knew the significance of that date would be incapable of opening the box.

"This should do for now." She held the box out and Ash turned around to take it.

"Since nobody's in right now, you can hang out with me and watch some boob tube, if you want," Ash said as he affixed the panel seamlessly back into the wall. "I've got a set in my room." He gestured at a door closer to the bar with a sign that read "Doctor Baddass is: Out" dangling from a nail. "And I've got a stash of primo weed in there just waiting to be smoked."

"As intriguing as that sounds, I think it would be best if I waited out front." The last thing she wanted to do was get high with a redneck.

"Suit yourself." Ash shrugged amiably.

Bela resisted the sudden, overwhelming urge to find a bathroom and scrub her skin raw. Instead she made her way back to the main room and settled into a propitious corner. Now all she had to do was wait. Her contact would be here soon.

* * *

Dean absently tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to turn green. The sun was shining, i_Master of Puppets_i was blasting out of the stereo and a light breeze was blowing in through the window, drying the sweat on the back of his neck; things could definitely be worse.

At the first flash of green he eased his baby through the intersection and into the Super Foods' parking lot, her engine purring especially for him. He had a bunch of stuff to pick up for the Roadhouse, all sorts of shit that Ellen assured him they couldn't do without, not even for one night. And he wasn't about to contradict her—better to run the errands than have to handle even a mildly pissed-off Ellen Harvelle. He'd known from the moment he met her that she could kick his ass without even batting an eye.

He levered himself out of the car, his back still stiff from the job he'd picked up over the weekend. Goddamn ghost just had to go and throw him down the stairs. He stretched and slammed his door, his eyes casually casing the parking lot as he did so. In the next row over a shiny green Impala, one of the newer generation, rolled into his line of sight. The driver was hunched over the wheel and had a head of long, shaggy hair.

Dean froze, eyes wide, futile hope lurching in his chest.

The car drifted by on a wave of screaming baby and tinkly kiddie pop, the harassed parent inside a total stranger.

His held breath burst out of him as if he'd been kicked in the chest. He swallowed and felt his throat tighten under another wave of intense emotion, this time anger. Damn it, he'd thought he was over this, done with jumping at shadows and looking for Sam and Dad in the faces of strangers.

His fists clenched, fingernails digging into his palms. Dean was sick and tired of that gut deep, kneejerk reaction that kept him from giving up on them the way they'd given up on him. They'd made their dismissal perfectly fucking clear and he was the sad sack who still let phantasms string him along.

He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. Whatever. Fuck 'em. He could do this without them.

He turned towards the grocery store. Ellen's shopping list ran through his head, its mundane stability better than Latin when it came to exorcising his own personal demons. He needed to get back in the game.

Dean started across the parking lot and didn't look back.


	2. Killed Five Times

**Part Two – Killed Five Times in Five Different Places**

The back of Ellen's neck itched, and her hand jittered nervously whenever she wasn't wiping down the counter or pouring a drink. Something was pricking at her instincts, keeping her on alert for whatever was about to come screaming down the pipe.

It was driving her fucking nuts.

She glanced around the sparse crowd that was her bar's usual Tuesday evening attendance: a couple farmers at a table in the corner who had been there since the early afternoon, drinking hard while their crops withered in their fields; a few truckers with their mugs of coffee and their tall tales; and a couple burned-out office drones too worn down to go home and deal with the rest of their lives. Cigarette smoke blurred the edges of her very own snapshot of Modern America.

Course, that feeling of impending crisis might stem from the sophisticated-seeming woman sitting at a table in a private corner. It didn't matter what Bela Talbot's intentions were, her presence in Ellen's bar only ever meant trouble of one kind or another. The last time she'd blown into town on a wave of her own hoity-toityness had almost lost Ellen her liquor license, and the time before that had seen the explosion of the Roadhouse's only toilet by a herd of ticked-off imps.

Nothing that girl could do would ever bring Ellen Harvelle anything but consternation, of that she was certain.

The prickling didn't ease as Ellen poured out Ray Higgins' order (double shot of whiskey with a PBR chaser). Bela didn't move or talk—hadn't done either the entire time Ellen had been behind the bar—just flipped through a ledger book, casually jotting notes as she saw fit. Ellen didn't quite have reason to throw her out on her ass, but the night was still young. Something'd change that soon enough.

The throaty growl of the Impala's engine announced Dean's arrival before the car even pulled into the dusty lot. Ellen let her shoulders relax, just a titch. She hadn't known what to think when that boy'd shown up more than a year ago, all beat to hell after a hunt gone sideways. She'd known that he was a Winchester the second she'd pulled her gun on him what with the mulish expression that'd appeared on his face—that and the beat-up leather coat that'd hung on his shoulders. She'd heard his daddy's drawl when he'd opened his mouth and had contemplated shooting him for more than a second. But then he'd staggered and toppled sideways into a chair, and she'd decided to shelve the shooting for a time when he was patched up and would appreciate it better.

It was just her luck that by the time he was well enough to get up off the cot in the back she'd already accepted him into the Roadhouse family, whether he wanted to be a member or not. Since then he'd become a near permanent fixture around the bar and he was always willing to pull his own weight.

She'd come to trust him in a way she'd never trusted his daddy. Hell, she'd even trust him with her Jo, though she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't grateful that the possibility had been a non-starter. Apparently cleaning a man's vomit out of her hair was not the way to her daughter's heart.

"God damn," Dean said as he clattered through the screened front door. He faux-staggered under the weight of the grocery bags clutched in his arms. "Next time just tell me to buy out the whole store, why don't ya?" He deposited the bags on the bar with a labored sigh.

Ellen whapped him on the arm with her towel. "If I wanted lip I'd've sent Jo to the store instead."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, but she wouldn't have gotten back until after you'd sent out the search party to find her. And she would've forgotten the extra pretzels." He pulled out the plastic bag and shook it with a grin.

Over Dean's shoulder Ellen caught a glimpse of the screen door slamming open to admit a new set of patrons. She reached around the paper bags and easily picked them up. "You're the biggest baby I ever met," she teased Dean. She jerked her head towards the newly-occupied table. "Why don't you watch the front while I get things sorted in back. Looks like your best FBI boyfriend just showed up with some company."

"Excellent. You can make me some pie while you're back there." Dean winked as he smoothly maneuvered himself around to her side of the bar.

"Boy, the back of your head is begging to be slapped. You're just lucky that my hands are full." Ellen pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen on a peal of Dean's laughter. She was still grinning as she started to unload the grocery bags.

She was pulling out the butcher's specially prepared mix of ground hamburger meat when she heard the back door give a low squeak, the sound of someone trying to sneak in without being noticed.

"Joanna Beth Harvelle," Ellen said over her shoulder. "You'd better have a damn good reason for why you took your sweet time getting back here." She turned, the meat on a Styrofoam tray in her hand, and gave her daughter a hard stare. The girl didn't even have the sense to fake penitence. "I never would've given you money for that damn truck if I'd known I wouldn't be able to count on you doing your job."

Jo froze in the doorway and a large shadow appeared in the screen behind her.

"And who the hell—" The words died in Ellen's throat when she got a look at who her daughter had brought home. The tray of meat dropped out of her suddenly nerveless hands, the foam cracking and ground beef exploding out of its package onto the floor. She knew that man, had seen his face, younger and smiling, in Dean's wallet, and on the illicit print-outs Jo hadn't tried too hard to hide.

Her hand found the butt of the gun she kept under the counter. She whipped it out and pointed it at him, ignoring Jo's pissy, whining, "Mom." They young man held up his hands in a calming gesture, his eyes wide and sincere.

"Wait, please," Sam Winchester said. "I can explain."

"Talk," Ellen said. Her gun didn't waver.

* * *

Victor watched Dean reach beneath the bar as the door to the kitchen swung lazily shut behind Ellen Harvelle. Anger tangled itself up with self-recrimination, Victor never should've assumed that Dean was a Harvelle just because Ellen treated him like family, it was sloppy investigative work and Victor knew better. All of it made Victor's fingers itch, he wanted to pull the gun at his hip and wipe that smile off of Winchester's face, he wanted to make him really understand what it meant to fuck with Victor Henricksen.

Instead he watched as the bastard snagged four glasses, a bottle, and headed straight over to the table where the FBI entourage had set up camp. He had always believed in order and justice, the sometimes stumbling but always true mechanism that held society together. He wasn't going to throw all of that away now for some inbred redneck. Winchester would get what was coming to him, soon enough.

Victor didn't let himself think about all of the things hiding underneath his cold rage. He didn't want to look at what it meant to have a friend who betrayed him.

Dean's jaunty stroll slowed as he got closer to the table. He peered at Victor, and his forehead bunched up. He sent Cal an inquisitive look as he set the liquor and glasses down on the table, and only got Cal's blankest look for his troubles.

And that was why Cal was family; he would always have Victor's back, no matter what.

"Tough day at the office?" Dean mechanically poured a generous shot into each glass, his shoulders tense under the unexpected awkwardness. He handed one off to Cal without looking, his eyes fixed on Victor's face.

"You could say that," her replied, voice even and calm. He leaned back in his seat and sipped at the drink Dean passed him. Victor felt so special: Dean had broken out the good stuff.

He set the glass back down on the table, easily letting Dean's "The fuck is going on?" look roll right off him. It was fun when suspects squirmed.

Dean rolled his eyes and turned his attention to Masters, his face smoothly shifting from bewilderment to lechery. Victor didn't know how he hadn't seen it before, the easy way that Dean could move from one personality to another, one lying face to the next. Victor should have seen all of this coming.

"And who are you?" Dean asked as he passed Masters a drink. "You're way too good looking to be a Fed like these jokers."

"Or something like that," Masters said with a smile that would've done a shark proud. She threw her drink back in one easy move and carefully put the glass back down on the table. Her grin sharpened around Dean's appreciation. "I'm what you'd call a specialist, I'm assisting the agents in a manhunt."

"Then, lady, you've come to the right place," Dean smarmed and filled his own glass before reaching over to top off hers.

"Oh, I know I have." Masters crossed her arms over her chest and sent an arch look Victor's way. Good, the ball was back in his court.

"Tell me, Dean, you seen your dad or your brother lately? Maybe when you were out of town last weekend?" Victor tried to keep the glee out of his face at the way Dean's head whipped around, the shock that widened his eyes and thinned his mouth.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Dean's voice dropped two decibels, his face hardened into a blank wall Victor had never seen before.

Victor grinned and leaned forward. "It seems that you've been keeping secrets from me, ol' buddy, ol' pal. Like about how you've been helping daddy and baby brother and their whole little nutjob organization plan and instigate attacks on the federal government."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Confusion laced Dean's voice. Damn, he was good. If Victor didn't know any better he'd actually be tempted to buy what the jackass was selling.

"So, you had nothing to do with all of those bombers, all of those people who walked into federal buildings and blew them sky high, killing thousands of innocent people? The subject never happened to come up at Thanksgiving or whatever holiday it is that you paranoid, quasi-military extremist types celebrate?"

Dean's only response was to slouch in his chair and kick his feet out in front of him. Victor would've bought the nonchalant act, too, if not for the way the liquor in Dean's glass vibrated under his tight grip.

Victor looked at Cal. "Where was it John and Sam were spotted, again?"

Cal pulled out a folder and started laying surveillance photos on the table. "Tulsa, Saginaw, Charlotte, Lafayette, Seattle, McAllen," he chronicled, his voice as dispassionate and steady as if he were reading names out of the phone book. "All of John or Sam Winchester, either together or separately, all taken hours before a terrorist attack."

Dean didn't sit up, didn't look at the photos, his eyes never left Victor's face. "Your point being?"

"Do you honestly expect us to believe that you didn't have anything to do with these?" Victor pushed the photos forward, spreading them across the table. "I've seen your record, Dean. You never settled down, didn't have a normal childhood, what with your Dad constantly moving you back and forth across the country. The only home you've ever had is your family. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you don't know anything about the attacks?"

"You can believe whatever the hell you want to believe. I haven't seen them in years." Dean swallowed and his eyes shifted for a second before coming back to Victor's face. There it was; Dean had said something he didn't want to. Give Victor a couple more hours and he'd get out secrets that Dean himself didn't even know he knew.

"Really," Masters drawled from Victor's right. "So I guess that's not your brother who just came out of the kitchen."

Victor's head whipped around as Dean's chair screeched against the floor. There he was, Sam Winchester in the flesh. Victor watched as he walked across the bar and sat down across from an impeccably dressed woman who was not numbered among the Roadhouse's usual clientele. It was too good to be true.

A moment passed as Victor's mind flipped from one tactic to another. He nodded off of Cal's look, they needed to play this just right, and they couldn't afford to spook the target. A break like that couldn't be wasted. They waited for conversation at the far table to deepen enough to cover their approach and only then did they rise in unison. Masters was right there with them, she may not have been FBI but she certainly seemed to have a hunter's instincts.

Through it all Dean sat frozen at the table, emotions coursing out of him: shock, anger, longing, betrayal, and too many others to name. He didn't look like a threat

Victor's gaze zeroed in on his quarry while a cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach, a seed of doubt that he had to ignore. There might be more truth to Dean's story then he'd thought.

* * *

"Finish your business and then get the hell out of my bar," Mom ordered and lowered her pistol, her eyes hard.

Sam nodded brusquely, the kicked puppy, 'you can trust me' look slipping off his face. "Yes ma'am," he agreed.

Jo's eyes tracked Sam as he walked out of the kitchen. She meant to follow him but her mother's gaze weighed heavily on the side of her face and she couldn't quite take that first step. She sighed, shoulders slumping, and looked at the floor, ready for the tongue-lashing she was sure to receive.

"Joanna Beth," her mom's voice carried hard and precise through the heavy air, "you're going to get your fool self killed if you keep playing around in things you don't understand."

"That's bull." Jo's head snapped up, anger stiffening her spine. "I understand all of this a damn sight better than you do. We can't just sit around and pretend that things aren't messed up. We have to do something."

Her mom's eyes widened and her hand gripped the sink behind her. "Don't you take that tone with me." She took a breath and her mouth thinned around the fight she wasn't going to start. "Get out of here before you get the whupping you deserve. I have work to do."

Jo turned on her heel, hair flipping over her shoulder, and stormed into the bar. Her mother just refused to see what was right in front of her. She was the most annoying woman on the planet.

The door flipped closed, raising a breeze that ruffled through Jo's hair. Her eyes darted around the bar, frustration and anger slowly draining away. She skipped right over all of the usual alcoholics and only paused for a second at the table where the Feds—including a blonde woman Jo didn't recognize, had Dean surrounded, Henricksen and Reid wore scowls instead of their usual boys' club smiles—and a grin flickered across Jo's face. It looked like Dean's best buddy Victor wasn't as awesome as Dean thought.

She finally turned to the table in the far corner that was almost hidden by the pool table. Sam sat across from that bitch, Bela. A wave of disgust shot through Jo, thinning her mouth. It went against her personal moral code to deal with people like Bela Talbot, people who were only out for number one, and the rest of the world could go to Hell, literally. How could you know about all of the evil in the world and not do something to stop it?

But Jo's moral qualms with the woman didn't matter, Bela had something their resistance needed and that was that. Anyway, it was better dealing with her than heading down to the nearest crossroads; Bela was still nominally human, at least.

Chairs scraped against the floor and Jo looked in time to see the feds stand up and start moving towards the exact spot where Sam and Bela were deep in conversation. Dean, the jackass, stayed seated. He wouldn't even look at his brother.

Jo maneuvered her way across the bar, careful to not tread over the squeaky floorboards. She leaned against the back wall, close enough to overhear the discussion but far enough away to avoid suspicion. They made quite the tableau, the seated couple surrounded by people who wore their authority as familiarly as their suits. But Jo couldn't look away from the set of Sam's shoulders, the tilt of his head, his posture screaming that there wasn't anything that those agents could do that would touch him in the slightest.

"Well, well, well, this might just be my luckiest night ever," Henricksen crowed, rubbing his hands together. "Corner one brother and the other goes pop out of the woodwork. Maybe daddy'll show up and make it a perfect hat trick." Henricksen pulled a chair around and sat down, Reid doing the same across the table from him.

Sam's eyes remained fixed on the blonde Fed who stood behind Bela's chair. "You really pulled out all the stops this time, Meg."

"I live to impress you, Sammy." A smirk cut across the blond woman's sharp face. "You're not going to be able to avoid us anymore."

Sam's shoulders stiffened momentarily and then he relaxed, slouching a little in his chair. "I've already heard everything you have to offer, and I'm still not interested."

"We'll see." Meg's hand fell on Bela's shoulder. An expression of disgust flashed over Bela's face, a fleeting break in her usual smug superiority. Jo's stomach clenched. Only a real shitstorm would be enough to break through that one's façade.

Jo's head whipped around at the sound of the TV across the bar switching on. Dean stood under it, manually flipping the channels away from the ball game that was the usual evening fare. He finally rested on CNN where some reporter stood in front of the Pentagon. Jo's eyes narrowed. Dean's brother was across the room, about to be dragged away for good, and now was the time when Dean decided to work on his social studies skills. That was some bullshit of the highest order.

"Aaaww, what a sweet reunion. You kids are breaking my heart." The undertone of repressed frustration in Henricksen's voice dragged Jo's attention away from Dean and the television. "No pretty words are gonna cut you a deal on this one. You're stuck in it now, Sammy."

"That's not my name." Sam's voice was so low and controlled that Jo almost couldn't hear it. Something was about to happen, and Jo had a bad feeling that Sam would be the one to start it. Her mom was going to be pissed.

The commentary on the television cut through the tense bubble in the corner and dragged Jo's attention away again. Jo was surprised to notice that everyone else in the bar was focused on the TV screen with the kind of intensity that was usually reserved for the World Series. A woman in a sharp suit had joined the reporter on the screen. "Here with me is Ruth Curtis, a prosecuting attorney with the Michigan Attorney General's office. She is also Captain James Curtis's sister, the officer executed yesterday for treason."

The tension in Jo's stomach spiked. What the fuck did Dean think he was doing? He knew how volatile the Roadhouse could be and he wasn't so frigging clueless that he hadn't heard about the Trial of the Century. He had to know that playing a broadcast about how the U.S. Army had just killed a man who'd had the misfortune to stumble over the demonic conspiracy churning at the center of the government and too much honor to not keep his mouth shut was the dumbest of dumb ideas. Jo's eyes flicked back to Sam's table, nerves strumming, but no one there seemed to have noticed what was brewing on the other side of the room.

"Turn that crap off!" an angry voice slurred loud enough to carry. "I don't wanna hear about that fucking traitor."

"You shut your mouth." Rob Emens stood up, hands already balled into fists. His middle boy had been killed in a suicide bombing earlier that year. "That boy's a hero."

"Some kinda hero," a new voice chimed in. "I guess turning against your government in a time of war is the new kind heroism."

"I said, shut your goddamn mouth," Rob growled and, in the most graceful move Jo had ever seen a guy drunk off his ass employ, he turned and slugged the guy at the table next to him.

Cue the Roadhouse erupting into chaos. Jo had seen bar brawls before, but this one was something else. She hadn't realized that there were other people who had that much anger simmering in their chests, just waiting to get out.

Ted Stoppa punched Jack Donovan, the guy with whom he'd spent all winter refurbishing a house. The force sent Jack sprawling into Henricksen's chair, both of them tumbling onto the floor. Jo took the opening to jump forward and club Reid over the head just when Bela jabbed her elbow backwards, catching Meg in the throat.

"Get out of here!" Jo yelled at Sam while she hit Reid over the head again to make sure he stayed down. Sam was already standing, his fists clenching and unclenching, eyes darting from one side to the other. Jo grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the hallway door. She pushed him through it. "None of this is worth it if you get caught."

Sam glared at her and then his mouth thinned and he nodded. He turned and dashed down the hallway, the door slamming shut behind him.

Someone big slammed into Jo's back. She let the hit spin her around and used the momentum to add some extra force to the punch that knocked some guy with greasy hair onto his ass. Across the room she saw that Henricksen had taken a protective stance over his partner, who was just coming around. The unlucky bastard who got a little too close to them got slammed into the nearest table, courtesy of the FBI. Meg had Bela pinned against the far wall, Bela's arm yanked up behind her back at an uncomfortable angle.

Those were the last coherent images Jo had before another guy swung into her, and she was thrown into the fray. The next few minutes were full of the sting of knuckles across cheeks and the crack of broken furniture. The next thing she knew she was cracking Tommy Smith across the face with a chair leg—the same guy whose ass she'd kicked after he'd tried to cop a feel at the Harvest Hoe Down in eighth grade.

A shotgun blast ricocheted across the room and everyone immediately stilled. Jo's mom was standing on the bar, the barrel of her favorite gun pointed out at the crowd. "You all have ten seconds to get the fuck out of my bar or I'm gonna start aiming before I shoot. Get!" She yelled and pumped the shotgun ominously.

The room cleared in a flash. Henricksen, Reid, and Meg were the last to leave, a blank-faced and hand-cuffed Bela sandwiched between them. Jo was glad to see Reid on his feet, she'd always liked him, and it would suck if she'd done him any serious harm.

Soon the only people left in the bar were Jo, her mom, and a boxer-clad Ash who looked like someone had run over his dog. "Man, I miss all the good brawls," Ash grumped and turned back to his room.

Mom lowered the gun and flipped the safety back on. She shot Jo a glare that would boil metal. "Kitchen. Now."

Jo's shoulders slumped. Shit, she was in for it now.

* * *

Sam crept through the Roadhouse's back door, carefully stowing his lockpicks as he went. The hallway was as dark as the dead-of-night sky outside, but a glimmer of light shone from underneath the door that led into the bar. He didn't want to be back here. Of all of the stupid things he'd done in his life, returning to the place where he'd narrowly escaped being nabbed by the feds had to rank in the top tier of dumbass shit. But the Dad in his head, the one he'd almost stopped hearing at Stanford, was growling at him to get the job done.

Getting the Colt was all that mattered.

Except that Sam wasn't entirely sure how to do that. He and Bela hadn't gotten past the initial angry banter and repressed sexual tension stage of their negotiation before they were permanently interrupted. All he had were Bela's assurances that she had the capacity to sell him the Colt and spotty knowledge of the locale where the transaction was supposed to have taken place. He'd already torn apart her car on the slim hope that the gun was hidden somewhere in it. And now he'd have to do the same to the Roadhouse, regardless of the specter of Ellen Harvelle's pistol pointed at his face.

After all, he wasn't here for Dad, or even for himself. Not really. There were people who counted on him, a job that needed doing that had become so much bigger than the solitary quest that had consumed his childhood. He was a leader now, and it was his responsibility to take on the hard things that other people couldn't do. Dad might not entirely approve of Sam's organizing but even he recognized the scope of what their family's fight had become, and Dad would be the first to tell him that the mission always comes first.

So if the Colt wasn't here, well, he'd do what he had to do. Taking on the agents who had dragged Bela away in handcuffs wasn't the most promising prospect in the world, but he'd done worse. A long line of criminal activity stretched behind him since Jessica was murdered before his eyes; one more instance hardly mattered, one way or another.

Maybe, if he saved the world, he could start to make up for letting his fiancée die.

Sam crept down the hallway, careful to walk lightly in his heavy boots. He paused for a moment beside the open doorway that led to the upper floor. He listened but only heard the sound of his ragged breaths. With a nod he moved further down the passage, not giving the door to Doctor Badass's office more than a passing glance. He'd go for a subtle search first, only resorting to a normal Winchester slash and burn if things didn't go his way.

He eased the door open and slid into the bar, softly shutting out the hallway behind him. Someone had made a cursory attempt at cleaning up but the room was still a disaster. The floor was littered in broken chairs, overturned tables and shattered glass. Sam had seen the aftermath of demon attacks that looked better than that. When North Platte, Nebraska decided to have a brawl, it went all out.

His amusement left him in a rush when he saw the figure bent over a table at the other side of the room, screwing a leg onto a chair. Dean had filled out a little since Sam last saw him—blank-faced and stiff as Sam had stormed out of some shitty motel room, duffle on his shoulder and Stanford his goal—but Sam would know his brother anywhere.

"Go back to bed, Jo," Dean said as he started to turn, his voice gruffer than Sam remembered, "or your mom's gonn—" He completed his turn and froze, hand clenching tight around the screwdriver. He stared at Sam, eyes wide.

Sam couldn't move. He wanted to stride across the room and hug Dean like he hadn't in way too long. He wanted to apologize, grovel on the floor for taking Dad and leaving Dean behind. He wanted to pretend that they were kids again, that Dean could tuck Sam in and keep the monsters away.

"Dean," he finally said, voice cracking over the one long syllable.

Dean jerked at the sound of his own name and then sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Thought you might show up again tonight." He turned and went to the bar, where he pulled out a bottle and took a long swallow before looking back at Sam.

Sam's muscles unlocked and he walked forward. His mind fumbled for words—all of the years of practice, of making conversation with random strangers, turning out pretty lies for petty reasons, and he couldn't find anything to say to the stranger who looked at him with Dean's eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Sam said as he came up to the bar, voice more harsh than he'd intended.

Dean snorted without humor. "That's not how it goes, kiddo. I'm supposed to ask you how Stanford's going and you're supposed to ask me how work's going. Don't they teach you basic social interaction at that fancy-pants school of yours?" Dean took another belt from the bottle. "Oh, that's right. You're not going to Stanford. You threw it all away so you could run around with Dad and blow up buildings. Sounds awesome."

"Jesus Christ," Sam responded, temper flaring. "We're trying to stop that damn demon that started all of this in the first place. It's that bastard who's been sending those screwed-up kids on suicide missions, who killed our mother and wants to take over the whole goddamn world."

"Megalomaniacal demons. Sure thing. Hope you guys are having fun with that." Dean stared at the screwdriver that he'd sent spinning on the bar.

Sam growled and slapped his hand down on top of the whirling tool. "What have I been doing? What have i_you_i been doing? When I left for school I couldn't even get you to take a couple weeks off, to just take a frigging vacation from hunting, and now you're playing house with the Harvelles? What the fuck, dude?"

Dean glared. "Just because I don't waste my life going from one shitty motel to an even shittier one. But I still do the damn job."

"Sure you do, when you're not burying your head in the sand and ignoring everything else around you." Sam snorted. "You're a real hero."

"Is there some reason you're here? I mean, besides trying to tear me a new one?" Dean demanded.

Sam took a deep breath. Being around Dean again was making him revert to old habits, patterns of behavior he thought he'd left behind a long time ago. "Yeah, I'm here for the Colt."

"The _Colt_? Dean sputtered. "Yeah, and I'm the motherfucking Tooth Fairy."

"Yes, the Colt. I was trying to negotiate a sale with Bela before things got out of control."

"And you really believe that Bela Talbot not only achieved the impossible and somehow obtained a mythological piece of American folklore but that she was actually going to sell it to you—no harm, no foul." Dean rolled his eyes. "I didn't raise you to be a sucker, Sam."

"I'm full of surprises." Sam's grin felt more like a grimace, shaped by all of the revelations about who he was and what he could do running through his mind. "There's no way Bela could have lied to me, even if she'd intended to. She had the gun and I had the money, it was a straight-up business transaction until the Men in Black butted in."

"Sure it was." Dean started screwing the top back on the liquor bottle. "Doesn't matter either way. If Henricksen doesn't have it by now, he will soon enough. And he'll have your ass, too, if you don't hightail it out of here."

"She may not have had it on her." Sam leaned forward, pulling up the sympathetic eyes that always used to get Dean to give him the last cookie. "If there's even a chance that it's somewhere around here I have to take it. We need that gun."

Dean shook his head as he put the bottle back under the bar. "No can do. You're not tearing up the bar to look for a fairy tale without Ellen's say-so. Come back in the morning and you can look while you help Jo with the clean-up."

"This is a little too important to worry about upsetting one woman." Sam couldn't believe that Dean was making such a big deal out of this. "You can't seriously expect me to twiddle my thumbs and wait."

"That's exactly what I expect you to do." Dean's hand smashed onto the bar. "You and Dad can do whatever you like on your own time but this is my place and my time and you will goddamn well do things my way."

Sam's jaw clenched. Dean always made a big deal out of the stupidest things. "Fine. But if that gun's gone by morning it's on your head."

"Fine," Dean agreed. "Now get the hell out of here."

Sam raised his hands and backed away, frustration churning in his gut. He didn't have time to put up with this bullshit.

After a few steps he turned around and strode to the front door. He paused, his hand striped by the bright white light shining in through the screen, and looked back.

Dean's face was turned away, his head bent as if it were too heavy for him to lift. Sorrow fell onto Sam, quelling his rage. He missed his brother so much—more than he'd ever thought he would. But he didn't know if he could come back here again, could deal with being treated like a stranger by the person who used to know him best.

He pushed through the screen door and out into the cool night. What he wanted didn't matter, it never really had. He had a job to do and he'd do it, regardless the cost. His life was full of regrets and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd finally learned what Dad had tried to teach him for all of those years: nothing came before the mission. Not himself, not the people he loved—no one.

It was better that way.


	3. As Time Goes By

**Part Three – As Time Goes By**

Bela had not anticipated a stay, of any duration, in a small, gray cinder-block room in the armpit of America. Oh, she had spent her share of time detained by the authorities of any number of locales and countries, but there was something ignominious about her current predicament. It stung her professional pride to consider how quickly she had let that situation get away from her. She was better than that.

She stretched in the uncomfortable plastic chair and took a sip of water that had grudgingly been left for her. Apparently the comfort of a detainee was not as high a priority as getting medical care for an incapacitated companion. Common courtesy was something that law enforcement universally officials lacked. They simply refused to realize that honey, not bug spray, was what was required for entrepreneurs of her particular nature.

Time ticked slowly past. She stood and paced the confines of her jail. There were no obvious escape routes, the only door heavy and barred on the outside. There were no windows, no visible vents. There wasn't even the ubiquitous mirrored window—just two identical chairs, a table, and a paper cup of water. It seemed these agents, at least, had learned the value of simplicity.

From the moment that she'd opened an innocuous email in one of her varied accounts she had known that this job would be trouble. The offered sum had not been close to an adequate compensation for her services, or the value of the item involved, but that hadn't been enough to quell her curiosity. To be the one to find Samuel Colt's mythical pistol, to discover the weapon that not even the most evangelical of hunters believed existed, that was worth more than money. It would make her legendary, would ensure her remembrance long after her time had finally run out.

She should have learned by now not to indulge such fantasies. Dreams of glory and freedom never achieved anything but a new kind of cage.

Bela willed herself to sit down and close her eyes. The morning would surely bring interrogation, threats and empty promises, and she would have to be at her very best. Yet another step traveled on her pathway to Hell.

* * *

The inside of Victor's head pounded against his skull. After getting pounded on he'd spent most of the rest of the night filling out incident reports and calling Cal every other hour to make sure he was still among the living. A little discomfort was the price Victor paid for doing his job and taking care of his partner.

He pulled himself out of his car, the bright morning sunshine sending spikes through his retinas. He squinted and clutched at cardboard coffee carry-all in his hand like it was the beat-up stuffed dog he'd had as a kid. The world felt soft around him, lopsided in a way that didn't fit with the night that had preceded it. He just couldn't shake that look on Dean's face, the betrayal, pain, and love when he looked at his brother.

Victor's gut was taking a noisy second place to his head, screaming that there was more going on than he'd been told. The problem was, he didn't know which side was putting him on. Someone was lying to him, and for the first time in his career he couldn't tell who.

He pushed his way through the makeshift federal building's glass doors. He blinked his sun-dazzled eyes and came within an inch of running straight into Masters and dumping coffee on both of their shirts.

Masters grinned up at him as his eyes finished adjusting, her mouth curved in the kind of dark amusement that he'd only ever seen on career criminals or the more dedicated of the Bureau's behavioral analysts.

He wasn't surprised that she'd escaped last night's brawl without even a bruise to tell the tale.

"Good morning, Agent," she greeted, her voice laughing at him. "I was just about to go talk to our guest. Care to join me?"

"In a bit," Victor said, eyes darting to the main office door. "I need to check on a few things first."

Her grin widened at his expense. "Of course." She snaked past him and moved down the dim hallway, her palpable disdain gliding with her.

Victor grimaced and headed towards the office. He'd known a number of power mongers in his time, stone cold manipulators who'd climbed the ranks without regard for all of the people they were stepping on, but there was something different about Masters, something darker. Like she was a nightmare playing at being a real girl.

Victor stepped into the space he shared with Cal to find his partner bent nearly double behind his computer's screen. Cal looked up, his dark bruises standing out against an unnatural pallor, making Victor's grimace momentarily deepen. At least the blood was gone, scrubbed clean but not forgotten. In the space of a step Victor forced the biting concern to flow out of his muscles. He made himself grin, just a little, and extend the carryall toward Cal's desk.

"You look like hell, Agent Reid," Victor said as he came around the desk, pulling out and setting Reid's coffee beside him.

Cal grinned, the smile tugging at the split in his upper lip. "Not all of us are as pretty as you, Agent Henricksen," he quipped before taking a sip of his offering.

Warmth flooded through Victor's chest, easing some of the concern that had lodged deep. If Cal was steady and with him then they'd manage to get through whatever was thrown their way. He tapped on the edge of the monitor.

"Are we all set up in the supply closet?" he asked.

"You betcha," Cal drawled, a little of his native Minnesotan coming through. "And for some reason I forgot to mention to our well-connected friend that there's a video recording system in our makeshift interrogation room. It must've slipped my mind."

"I'll just bet." Victor couldn't stop a droll grin from spreading. "Well, how about we take a little looksee at what's going on in there. We wouldn't want anyone to infringe on Ms. Talbot's Constitutionally guaranteed rights."

"Heaven forbid," Cal muttered, and with a click of his finger he brought the video feed up sharp and crisp. Putting together a covert surveillance system had been Cal's project during the long, boring months of nothing in North Platte. The tiny digital camera, which would've been outside of their pay grade before the April 19th attacks, was hidden in plain sight. Cal had deftly pried up the trim around the door and positioned the covert digital lens through an already-existing hole. It would take extremely close scrutiny to distinguish it from the other trim nails in the doorway and with the room's spotty lighting it was damn near the money being thrown left and right to combat domestic terrorism, even agents stuck in the butt crack of America could requisition the fanciest new toys.

The miracles of modern technology produced a sideways view of the players in their real-life crime drama. Masters leaned against the wall across from their guest, her eyes studying Talbot over the top of the folder she was flipping through. Talbot remained seated, her eyes lazily closed in an almost convincing show of inattention.

"Good morning," Masters drawled, fingers still carding through the open file. "I hope you had a pleasant evening."

"Indubitably." Talbot smirked. "Though the accommodations were a bit sparse, and the service was atrocious."

"We'll have to do something about that." Masters looked up, the feed sharp enough to catch the feral look that slipped through her professional mask, a predator going in for the kill. "Crowley sends his regards."

Talbot flinched, her direct attention hitting Masters for the first time, nonchalance stripped away. She took a deep breath, trying to summon the dregs of her dignity. "Is that so?"

"It is indeed." Masters pushed off from the wall and slid into the nearby seat. "It's a dangerous game, playing one side against the other." Masters leaned forward, her smile a knife. "We want the Colt. Now."

"As you can see, I must have left it in my other bag." Talbot spread her arms, all studied insouciance.

Masters slowly shook her head. "Did you really think that Sam Winchester could win you back your soul? Abby, Abby, Abby," she tsked and leaned over, grabbing Talbot's chin, commanding her focus. "You're ours, both you and your gutter soul."

Talbot gasped, her face creasing in pain. "Christo," she hissed, voice hoarse.

Masters flinched backwards into her chair, the camera feed popping and fizzling. "Oh, honey, you didn't want to do that." She flicked her hand and Talbot's chair slammed into the wall behind her.

"Now tell me," Masters said as she stood, stalking towards Talbot, who sat immobile—a butterfly pinned to a board. "Where is the Colt?" The video blinked in and out, static underlining it all, as Talbot screamed.

The screen went black.

A moment of silence beat past Henricksen and Reid, Talbot's shrieks echoing in their ears. Then, in unison, they surged away from the desk, their feet pounded down the empty hallway in frantic cadence. Victor pounded on the door, and wrenched at the doorknob, but the screams never stopped. He slammed his shoulder into the door, but nothing gave.

He stepped back and let Cal kick, his partner's foot dead on target, the force enough to break down the shoddy frame, but there was no effect. Victor pulled his gun as Cal stepped back, drawing his own weapon and taking a flanking position. He fired two shots into the door; they rebounded, leaving the door unmarred.

"What the fuck?" Victor seethed. He added a kick of his own, not expecting any result and not receiving one. Talbot's screams turned hoarse. Victor turned to Cal, whose eyes were wide in his bruise-mottled face. "You hold down the fort. I'm going to get some fucking answers."

Cal nodded, and Victor spun away, gun still out. He stalked out of the building. He was done with being played a fool.

* * *

The first chance he got that morning, Dean escaped to the hardware store. The Roadhouse had been a perfect storm of pissiness, what with Jo griping under her breath as she started in on the clean-up and Sam practically tearing up the floorboards looking for his magical gun. Dean had done his best to stick around—he'd started the damn brawl, after all—but he hadn't looked the gift horse in the mouth when Ellen ordered him to get his ass over to the Do-It Center and get some goddamn supplies.

He could've kissed Ellen, swept her up and laid one on her good and thorough, but he'd rather live to fight another day so he'd just thrown her his most grateful smile and squealed out of the parking lot, gravel kicking up behind him. Just slipping into his baby, feeling her rumble around him, helped calm the jangling in his stomach, quiet the anger and betrayal that screamed in his head during every second he spent around Sam. He hated it, hated himself, hated Sam for showing up and throwing the life that Dean had so painfully reconstructed for himself into chaos. The fucker did always have to be the center of attention.

And the worst part was the voice inside Dean's head—the one that always sounded like Dad—that told him to watch out for his brother, make sure Sammy was okay, protect him no matter what. There were some things he just couldn't kill, not matter how hard he tried.

It felt good to wander around the aisles full of power tools and planks, soldering guns and glue, to be indistinguishable from the contractors and DIY enthusiasts around him. He could focus on the difficult question of whether spackle would cover the holes kicked in the Roadhouse's walls or if re-plastering was the way to go or if Ellen would appreciate a kickin' neon "Zeppelin Rules" sign to hang over the bar. Let the mundane and the ridiculous silence the banshees that shrieked in his head.

He was in front of the chainsaws, deep in internal contemplation over how awesome it would be to decapitate zombies with the sleek model on display, when someone came up behind him, the shadow dark over his shoulder. He knew who it is without even turning around. He should've figured that their conversation would be picking up again sometime today.

"It's a real shame about the Yankees crapping out to the Tigers. I thought for sure your boys were all set to make another run for the pennant," Dean said, his finger running idly over the sharp teeth of the saw's chain.

"What the fuck is going on in my town, Dean?" Victor's voice growled behind him, violence more than a threat.

Dean snorted and turned around, eyebrows raised. "Are you sure you want to know that? Because yesterday you were all set to blame my family for every crime since Hoffa."

Victor stepped closer. "I just saw a woman get thrown across a room without anyone touching her. I just saw bullets I shot with my own goddamn gun deflected like they were bouncing off of some kind of force field." He took another step and grabbed Dean's shoulder, hard. "What the fuck does it mean?"

"Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much—" Dean cut himself off with a smirk at the fury that shot through Victor, tightening his fist even harder around Dean's arm. He couldn't help it; after all of that bullshit yesterday he deserved his pound of flesh. "Oops, sorry, wrong speech." He shrugged, pushing Victor's hand off of him. "It could be a super-charged ghost, maybe a witch or a demon. Definitely something on the higher end of the oogie-boogie scary shit scale."

"I don't have time to deal with you screwing around," Victor snarled.

"And I don't have time to deal with you threatening my family, throwing your weight around like you're the most terrifying thing on the planet." Dean's mouth twisted. "Trust me, buddy, I've seen things that would make you shit yourself with screaming nightmares; you don't even rate on the freaky shit o'meter."

Victor glared at him, eyes heavy on Dean's face, like he was trying to rip the truth out of him with the power of his mind. Dean was tempted to walk away, write off what they might've had the way he'd done with so many other people. But he couldn't just turn his back and ignore Victor's demands, not with the threat that still loomed over Sam, over his Dad. Sometimes you had to suck it up and take one for the team.

"You're not bullshitting me," Victor said, anger and grudging acceptance warring together in his tone. "I'd say you were crazy but, hell, that'd mean I'm crazy too." He clenched his eyes closed and breathed out. "Because I saw it, I saw it all, and Cal saw it too." He opened his eyes and let them bore into Dean's. "There's no way that woman could've done what she did. It's impossible."

Dean nodded. "There's a lot of weird stuff out there, man, and most of it would just as soon fuck you up as look at you."

"That's what your dad did, isn't it? Why he raised you and your brother on the road, outside the system." Dean could see Victor rearranging his entire worldview right there, putting all of his old perceptions together into new pathways. It was kind of amazing, and intimidating as hell. Not for the first time, Dean really wanted to work a case with the man.

"Well, yeah." Dean shrugged. "Someone's gotta hunt down all of those evil sons of bitches. I guess you could call it the family business." He switched tacks, needing to deflect Victor away before he got too close. "So it was that new chick who was slinging people around."

"Yeap." Victor grimaced. "She got pissed off while she was interrogating that slick Brit. Flicked her wrist and Talbot went flying across the room, didn't even lay a hand on her. The way she was screaming when Cal and I tried to get in the room—" He took a deep breath. "It was awful."

"Was she asking about anything specific?" Dean asked, carefully. He could feel panic starting to bubble in his stomach. Damnit, Sam might've been right. There might be more to this than Dean thought.

"A Colt?" Victor cocked an eyebrow. "I'm going to assume she meant a gun and not some kind of horse."

"Fuck. Sammy." Dean swallowed. He pinned Victor with a look. "We have to go. Now."

* * *

Jo was doing a damn fine job of trying Ellen's last nerve. She'd whined when Ellen had rousted her out of bed and she'd whined when she'd finally gotten her ass downstairs and realized how much work there was to do, and she'd especially whined when Dean had taken off for the hardware store. Now she sulked and pushed a broom around the floor, not really cleaning, more spreading dust around in something that might resemble work—if she were a three-year-old, that is.

All of which wasn't a fair picture of the girl, Ellen knew. It was hard, sometimes, to not see the girl that Jo had been, the apple of her daddy's eye. There were times—more than Ellen liked to count—when she needed Bill: needed his calm and his faith, but most especially needed someone who could stand between mother and daughter, could help them both see truth behind the screaming and the parental discipline. She wanted to hold on tight and keep her little girl safe. She never wanted to let go.

A pan banged in the kitchen and Ellen winced. Sam Winchester had been there at the crack of dawn with some off-the-wall story about finding Samuel Colt's gun. She still wasn't certain what had possessed her to let the boy trounce around her place, digging into every dusty corner and unexamined nook, but he'd insisted and she hadn't had it in her to refuse. She was becoming a friggin' soft touch in her old age. He was currently in the kitchen, making sure that there weren't any mysterious firearms hidden with the cutlery, as if Ellen didn't know damn well where every single weapon was stowed in her own place.

She drew the line at anyone ripping up her floorboards. Dean had enough work to do, what with fixing everything that'd been busted in the brawl. He didn't need to clean up anymore of his brother's messes. She had a feeling he'd spent enough time in his life picking up what John and Sam had left behind.

The door banged open and she looked up, hand on the butt of the shotgun under the door. Dean barged in, Henricksen at his shoulder. It didn't take a genius to know that bad shit was about to go down.

"Sam!" Dean bellowed. His eyes swept around the room, right arm tense and ready to grab for the gun he kept under his coat. He didn't seem to be in Henricksen's custody, even though the agent wouldn't leave Dean's side, his shoulders stiff with a new kind of tension, different from all of the types of frustration Ellen'd noticed on him in the past.

"What?" The door to the kitchen swung open on Sam's voice, the word clipped and bordering on annoyed.

"You have to get out of here." Dean demanded. "Now."

"I'm a little busy right now, Dean." Sam's glance flicked from his brother to Henricksen. "Whatever it is, it can wait."

Dean strode across the room until he was right up in Sam's face. "No, it can't. That other Fed was a demon. She's got Bela and she's going to be coming for you next."

Real alarm flattened Sam's face. He grabbed Dean's shoulders. "Does she have it? Does she have the gun?"

"Not likely." Henricksen's rumble cut through the tension that sparked between the Winchesters. Dean pushed away from Sam's grip and paced a few feet, his hand rubbing over his mouth, as Henricksen continued. "Talbot didn't have anything on her when we took her into custody. We certainly didn't confiscate some antique demon-killing pistol."

Ellen's eyes widened. Special Agent Victor Henricksen knew about demons. She shared a pole-axed look with Jo, who had taken position in the far corner where she had good coverage of the entire room. Her hand hovered by the false board that hid a couple things like a rifle and a jug of holy water. Never let it be said that her daughter was an idiot.

"So you have to get out of here," Dean repeated to his brother.

"No, that means I have to find the Colt before the demon gets here." The muscles in Sam's jaw twitched while he and his brother shared another loaded gaze. Henricksen's hand drifted to the butt of his firearm, though Ellen wasn't sure who he was planning to use it on.

"Sam—" Dean demanded, frustrated. He turned away as Ash stumbled out of the hallway, glassy-eyed and pushing a hand through his bedraggled hair.

Ash opened his mouth to make some half-assed comment that was blown away by the explosion that tore the screen door off its hinges and sent gravel and dirt flying through the room. Ellen ducked her head and blinked grit out of her eyes while at the same time pulling her shotgun out from under the bar and whipping it into position on her shoulder. Her finger itched on the trigger as her eyes watered and the room came back into focus.

The blonde Fed stood framed in the doorway, her face shadowed by the bright sun that flowed in behind and around her. She pulled Bela Talbot into the room and threw her to the floor. Bela struggled to push herself up but collapsed under her own weight. Blood and dirt streaked her clothes and her face was pale under developing bruises. She looked worse than Ellen had ever seen her.

"Meg," Sam rasped. He hadn't moved from his position by the bar, his feet planted at shoulder-width—the immovable object. Dean and Henricksen had taken up flanking positions around him, their guns drawn and pointed at the woman before them. Pride welled in Ellen at the sight of Jo across the room, her own gun up and at the ready.

"Hiya, Sam," Meg, the fed, the demon greeted in an almost genial tone. "Ah, ah, ah," she said on the click of the hammer of Dean's gun cocking back. "None of that now." She flicked her wrist and all the guns in the room went flying. Ellen held on tight but her own was ripped out of her hands and joined the others as they hit the far wall and clattered to the floor.

Meg advanced further into the room. "You all know what I'm here for," she stated, her eyes flicking from Sam to Henricksen and back again. "I only want the Colt. Nobody else needs to get hurt."

"Lady, you can go fuck yourself," Dean growled.

Meg gasped in over-played shock. "What manners. You'd think your mother would've raised you better than that. Oh, that's right," she said off of Dean's snarl. "You didn't have one." Dean started forward and she flicked her wrist again and sent him tumbling to the side, landing on Jo.

A table beside the demon started to tremble. "None of that, now," she remonstrated, shaking a finger at Sam. Sam shot backwards, flipping over the bar and landing in a heap behind it. "Enough with playtime." She moved and Ellen flinched, expecting another salvo. Instead Meg slithered up to Ash with a smirking grin. She slid a hand through his hair and let it rest at the nape of his neck. "You're going to go back and get that super-secret lockbox of yours and bring it out to me." Her grip tightened around his neck. "Or things are going to get messy." Her eyes flicked over to where Dean was helping Jo up off the floor. "Starting with your pretty little friend over there."

"Sure thing," Ash acquiesced, surprisingly nonchalant. Ellen would've thought that he was still high from the night before, except he winked at her as he turned away, calm as a cucumber.

Meg cut a look over to Sam, who had pulled himself up and was standing next to Ellen, his hands playing with the beer tap. "How do you deal with all of these chuckleheads?" Meg asked him in nearly genuine commiseration.

"I could ask the same of you and your associates. Except you're all, you know, evil," Sam replied, his eyes on Meg but his hands moving. He dropped a rosary into a nearby stein and carefully drowned the beads under a stream of beer. Henricksen had carefully maneuvered to the other corner during the chaos and now he and Dean stood shoulder to shoulder while Jo ducked behind them. Ellen knew her daughter well enough to know that she was prying open the board that hid their emergency weapon stash.

Meg's eyes sparkled. "It's all a matter of perspective." She grinned at Sam. "You'll come around eventually."

"Bullshit," Sam snarled, his face twisted though his hands were steady as he dropped the rosary into the almost-full stein. Meg rolled her eyes and looked away and Ellen took the opportunity to pull her handgun out from under the counter. That bitch wouldn't know what hit her.

Ash shambled out of the hallway, a battered safe-box in hand. Meg grabbed it out of his grasp and quickly punched something into the keypad on its top. Everything stilled as she carefully opened it.

Meg's eyes widened and after a heartbeat her face twisted in rage. In one motion she threw the box to the side where it clunked to the floor, empty, and grabbed Ash around the throat.

"What did you do with it?" He started to jerk his head and she shook him, hand tightening. "Don't play dumb with me, redneck. Where the fuck is the Colt."

" 'S gone," Ash croaked. "Gave it to a guy last night. 'S miles from here by now."

Meg growled. "Where did you send it?"

"Don't know," Ash said around a groan. "That's above my pay grade."

"Fuck." Meg slammed him into the wall again as Ellen pulled her gun and Sam started chanting quietly over his soon-to-be holy beer. Meg snarled and then, with an almost dismissive twist of her wrist, she snapped Ash's neck. She let go and turned away. Ash's body fell to the floor with a muffled thud.

"No!" Jo's scream broke through Ellen's shock. As Jo ran to her friend Ellen fired, bullet going right through that unholy bitch's chest.

The demon didn't even bother to take Ellen's gun away. She just looked at Sam. "You have a day to track it back down or I'm coming for your little friends one by one. Find me that gun, Sam," she commanded and with a gesture that blew out every light in the room she stalked out of the Roadhouse.

Ellen fell back against the counter, heart racing, as Jo wailed over Ash's body and Dean started yelling at his brother. Tears streaked her cheeks and her gun fell out of nerveless fingers. She'd promised herself that she'd never let evil into her home, that her family wouldn't get hurt, not on her watch. And she'd failed.


	4. Here's Looking At You, Kid

**Part Four – Here's Looking at You, Kid**

Everything hurt.

Police lights flickered red and blue on the Roadhouse's walls, vibrant against the deepening twilight. Jo huddled around herself in one of the only remaining chairs, her arms wrapped around her tucked-up legs and her chin resting on her knees. She felt cried out and dried up, the weight of sorrow in her chest bounced off of the blossoming bruise on her back. She hadn't felt this awful since the day Mom told her, voice stuttering over unshed tears that Daddy would never be coming back home.

She couldn't believe that Ash was dead. Not the easygoing guy who did everything she asked him to, who watched crappy movies with her in the middle of the night, who'd smiled like a loon when she'd made pot brownies for his birthday instead of cake. Guys like him deserved better than to be some kind of bullshit collateral damage. It wasn't fair.

And she couldn't help but feel that this was her fault. She'd brought Sam here, she'd been the one stuck up her own ass over all of that Resistance bullcrap; like she was goddamn Princess Leia, or something. Her mom had been right, she'd been playing with fire.

Out of the corner of her vision she saw the group of official-looking jackets stand up. She squeezed her eyes shut at the rattle of aluminum supports, involuntarily holding her breath until the stretcher with its black body bag had thumped out the front door. Ash was really gone.

When she finally opened her eyes Dean and Henricksen were standing by the door, talking too quietly for her to overhear. She watched Henricksen clap Dean on the shoulder before following the cops out the door. Dean stood there for a moment, staring out into the darkness. He rubbed a hand over his face and turned, heading straight for the bottle waiting on the counter. He didn't bother to grab a glass, just chugged the Jim Beam straight from the container.

Jo's mind strayed back to the chaos after the demon left, the sound of Henricksen yelling into the phone, the fierce, quiet debate that raged between Sam and Dean in the corner. Mostly she remembered the way Mom, her eyes rimmed in red, had carefully pulled her away from Ash's body, how she'd wrapped Jo up into her arms and held her tight as Jo screamed out her grief into her mother's steady shoulder.

The next thing she'd known someone was knocking by the door and Mom was setting her in the chair she still occupied. Jo didn't know what story Mom and Henricksen had spun for the cops, how they could explain the lights and the damage and, most especially, the dead man in the corner with the broken neck. It didn't really matter, though, because the cops had bought it, their faces twisted in "Shucks, ma'am, we're real sorry" expressions that they wouldn't have worn if they weren't sincere.

It had taken forever for the photos to be snapped and the statements taken. They'd left Jo alone, an almost graceful accession to her grief. In fact, no one had come anywhere near her, like her puffy face and tangled hair was some kind of force field that locked the rest of the world away.

Sam hadn't given a statement either, but then, he'd disappeared at some point before the cops showed up. Jo didn't know what she'd want to say to him if he were there, but his absence still felt like a betrayal.

Her mom walked into the room, hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, hands fisted at her sides. Jo could see the energy jittering under her mom's skin; if it were any other night she'd be scrubbing down the bathroom or carrying in stock from the shed, anything to wear herself out. Instead of doing any of that she grabbed the bottle out of Dean's hands and took a long swallow. Then she closed the distance between herself and her daughter and held the liquor out, the light Dean'd replaced sparking off the liquid dark and amber.

Jo grabbed it and drank. She wanted the burn as it slid down her throat, wanted to feel something, anything, other than this dull grief.

She lowered it and wiped her mouth. She looked at her mom, saw her sorrow reflected in those dark eyes. Jo took a deep breath and looked across to Dean, his face shadowed in the gloom.

"Promise me something, Dean," she said, voice scratchy and harsh. "Promise me that we're going to make that bitch pay."

Dean nodded, his gaze sharp and honest. "Yeah, I promise."

Jo swallowed around the tears that threatened to reemerge. Her head dipped in tight confirmation. Finally she let her mom pull her up, draw her away, and lead her up the stairs to her room. She didn't mind the way that Mom pulled up the covers and tucked her in, the kiss she left on her hair. Just for tonight she could do this, could be Mommy's little girl again and pretend that nothing bad could ever happen.

But only for tonight.

* * *

The hard soles of Victor's shoes clicked down the hospital corridors. He blindly maneuvered through the linoleum-clad hallway, mechanically dancing around anything that crossed his path, his mind spinning a mile a minute. He'd gotten the phone call just as they were wrapping things up at Harvelle's, the bland voice informing him that his partner had been checked into the hospital. Dread had settled in the pit of Victor's stomach as his brain threw up all of the things that Masters could have done, all of the awful things that could have happened. He'd been within a hair's breadth of adding vomit to everything else that littered the Roadhouse's floor.

The Great Plains Regional Medical Center wasn't too busy, friends and family having cleared out when day slipped irrevocably into night. Staff still littered the floors, white-clad techs making their rounds and nurses in bright scrubs moving with purpose from one room to another. Victor kept a tight rein on his temper—he wanted to scream at everyone, insist that they tell him what had happened, make them fix Cal right the fuck now. He kept it all together, though, self-aware enough to know that in reality he was the one to blame, he hadn't been there when his partner needed him. It was his fault.

He stood at the doorway to Cal's room, his heart pounding in counterpoint to the throbbing in the shoulder that Masters had slammed into the Roadhouse's wall. Before he could sink anymore into the selfish recriminations that floated inside his head, he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, his steps light and careful as he made his way into the room.

The light beside the bed shone down onto Cal's face, the harsh white light revealing new bruises and lacerations. His right arm was wrapped in a cast and his left leg was elevated. The steady up and down of his chest belied his corpse pallor.

Coughing sounded thick and moist beyond the thin curtain, the room's other inhabitant gasping in the night. Victor's attention caught on the noise, and when he looked back Cal's eyes were open, quick and aware.

"Glad you could make it," Cal scraped out of his throat.

"I'm—" Victor swallowed, words and emotions all trying to escape at once. He stepped closer, wanting to touch but not sure where would be safe. "What happened?"

Cal's mouth twisted into something that was half bitter smile, half grimace. "It took me too long to back up that footage we took. After she left with Talbot my plan was to get out of there, but she got back sooner than I thought. She tossed me around a bit, wanted to find out what I knew, whether I knew where you were, what you were doing." He coughed, dry hacks that pulled him up. "Whether that Resistance was involved."

Victor held up the cup of water by the bed, letting Cal sip. Cal nodded and lay back down, breath coming in pants like he'd just run a marathon. He sighed. "She bought it, though, believed that I hadn't been around, didn't know anything about anything." He chuckled, steel wool over stones. "She even called me an ambulance, right after she called someone else, made a report. Wasn't there when the EMTs showed up, though."

Cal closed his eyes, breathing evening toward sleep. Victor was just about to grab one of the wooden folding chairs hansing on the wall when Cal's hand grabbed his wrist. Victor stood, frozen by Cal's intensity. "You found it, right, figured out what all of this is about."

"Yeah, yeah I did," Victor replied, voice quiet but firm.

Cal nodded and sank back down again. "Good. That's good."

The chair squeaked as Victor unfolded it and shifted under his weight. He leaned forward and stood watch while his partner slept.

* * *

Dean walked the hall, two condensation-clad bottles clicking in his right hand. Ellen and Jo had finally gone to bed, wrapped up together in their shared grief and exhaustion. Dean felt it all, too, the emotions sunk deep into his bones and locked down tight in his chest. He craved the same thing, to faceplant onto a mattress, fall into sleep and never come back up. But he had one more thing to do before he could let himself forget, even for a little while.

He'd always known, somehow, that when Dad and Sam returned they'd burn through everything he'd found in their absence, raze it all to the ground. And he'd still wanted them to come back, needed his family with everything he had, the only way he knew how, the way his dad had taught him to.

He paused in front of the door, the sign telling him that Dr. Badass was in. Grief and anger stabbed hard in Dean's solar plexus. That stupid son of a bitch, he wasn't supposed to get himself killed.

Dean raised his hand and it clenched into a fist. He couldn't make himself turn the sign to "Out," didn't have it in him to erase the illusion that Ash was only out on a weed run, that he'd be back any second and then they'd smoke up and watch shitty, badly dubbed samurai movies. He shifted it to the door instead, rapping three times, hard and precise, on the sturdy wood.

He went in before getting a response, hand steady as he turned the knob. Sam sat in the dimly-lit room, gigantic shoulders hunched in front of Ash's cyborg computer built from whatever electronics Ash had felt like co-opting into his evil genius lair.

Somehow, in the years that Sam had spent away from him, his brother had grown into a friggin' behemoth with shoulders wide enough for three big guys and enough hair for even more. Dean could still see little Sammy in him, though, that sweet, smart kid he used to be, who he maybe still was, down deep.

Just looking at him hurt like hell.

"Figure anything out?" Dean eventually asked the top of Sam's head. "Got a lead on the Colt, or Bela?" Dean grimaced. She'd snuck out while everyone's backs had been turned, during the chaos that'd descended when that demon flounced away. It stung that he'd let her get away.

"No, nothing." Sam shoved at the laptop, hands stiff with frustration. His face twisted in that same annoyed look Dean remembered so well. "It's all gibberish," Sam continued, as if he took it personally that he couldn't decipher Ash's bizarre shorthand, even though it was more hackproof than government encryption. Sam always did get worked up about the strangest things.

"Don't worry about it," Dean said and held out one of the sweating bottles. "The man was a frigging redneck genius. We'll figure something out."

Sam took the bottle and twisted the cap off, flicking it towards the wall where it landed in a scattered pile of its discarded brethren. He took a long sip, throat gulping around the cold brew. "We need that gun, Dean. We all need that gun. And I need to figure out where Ash sent it before Meg does."

"And maybe we'll have to go hunt it down," Dean said. "But it's not like it's the end of the goddamn world." He sipped from his own bottle, eyes stuck to Sam like he was afraid Sam would disappear again if Dean blinked because, well, maybe he would.

Sam snorted, that same disbelieving, "my brother is an idiot" noise that Dean would never forget. "God, Dean. You have no idea, do you?" He shook his head. "This isn't about you or me or even Dad's quest. It's bigger than our family, now. And there's a lot more than revenge at stake. People are depending on me to get this done."

Dean nodded, eyebrows raised. "Oh yeah, that's right. You and your plucky little band are going to save us from the evil Emperor. And maybe you can shoot down some Nazis while you're at it."

Sam flinched and his mouth twisted. He slammed his bottle down, the blow sending some of the foam fizzing out the top, and turned back to the computer. His shoulders curved forward, Sam's way of protecting himself from his own anger, or maybe from the world, his frustration sounded out in every deliberate pound on the keys.

Dean closed his eyes for a long moment while his heart pounded. This isn't what he'd meant to do. He knew better than to let his damn fool mouth runaway on him. He felt trapped, torn between the conflicting needs to pull Sam close and push him as far away as he possibly could.

Sometimes he hated his family.

"You seemed to know that demon chick pretty well," Dean said breaking the silence, keeping the peace. "You tangle with her before?"

"Unfortunately." Sam's shoulders unclenched and he looked back up. "You've gotta be careful around her. She's a lot more dangerous than she seems."

"Got that memo, thanks. It's not like this is my first time at the rodeo." Dean rolled his eyes. The bitch had killed his friend. He didn't need Sammy to tell him that she meant business.

"It's not like digging up a grave or shooting a werewolf. Demons are dangerous and unpredictable and I know that you and Dad never handled one of those things when we were kids." Sam stood up, shoulders stiff like he needed to pace but couldn't find the room. "In fact, you and Jo and everyone should get out of here before she comes back, get to safety and let me handle her."

A strangled, bitter laugh burst out of Dean's chest. "And you and what army are gonna make us go? Hell, I'd like to see you try to make Ellen leave her place. It'd be the funniest thing I've seen all year."

"This isn't a joke." Sam leaned into Dean's space, spine rigid.

"You're goddamn right it's not a joke." Dean could feel it rising again, that same old anger. "So, what, I'm just supposed to leave you here to get yourself killed? I should run away? Who do you think I am?"

"You'll just get in the way. I have to handle this alone. It's my responsibility," Sam replied, as implacable as a mountain.

"Like. Hell." Dean's face twisted. "Do you have a plan, some super-secret scheme that you can't share with the class? Do you know how to draw a devil's trap? Have you ever even seen the fucking Key of Solomon?" Dean read the answer right off of Sam's face. "I didn't think so. I won't let you commit suicide."

"Why do you even care? You made your opinions on what we're doing perfectly clear. Why can't you just leave me alone and go back to playing ostrich, doing what you're good at?" Sam's words sharp with calculation. He always knew how to draw blood.

"Because you're my brother," Dean growled, the only reason there ever was. "You need my help, Sam. I've tracked demons with Bobby, I've been around the block a time or two." He stepped back and took a swig of his beer, needed a second of space. He grinned, sharp around the bottle. "I want answers and I might have an idea about how to get some out of her."

Sam's face spread, unpinching and flattening, intrigued. "What've you got?"

* * *

Ellen stared down at where Dean painted a symbol in lurid orange spray paint on her bar's dinged-up wood floor. "You'd better clean that up when we're done," she ordered in her best no nonsense tone.

Dean grinned up at her like he didn't have a care in the world. "You betcha," he promised. "Just as long as we make it out of this alive."

"That's comforting." Ellen's glare bounced off of Dean's widened grin. She rolled her eyes and he winked at her before turning back to his art project, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration.

Ellen's mouth twitched in involuntary amusement. Goddamn smartass Winchesters were gonna be the death of her. She headed back to where Jo and Henricksen were cleaning out and reloading an assortment of firearms at the bar. Their movements almost seemed choreographed, the same controlled, practiced movements, the same sharp focus on the task. Ellen imagined they also shared the same drive to strike back against the thing that had hurt their friends. She'd never seen her daughter as a hunter, had always turned a blind eye because the thought of her baby out there fighting, and maybe dying, like so many that Ellen had known filled her with terror. She wouldn't lose Jo like that, not ever.

But she was beginning to realize that maybe the choice wasn't hers to make, that evil would come knocking regardless. It might be time to trust that her little girl knew her own mind and could protect herself as well as anyone else.

Jo carefully set down a newly-loaded shotgun, her eyes flicking up to catch her mother watching. Jo's mouth twitched in something that might, eventually, be a smile, her eyes still ringed in red. Ellen blinked and she saw pigtails tied in pink and eyes begging for just one more story before going to bed.

In her head she knew that Jo was a woman grown, she just couldn't always make her eyes believe it. Ellen knew that all of that Resistance stuff was important to her daughter, was something she believed in with a kind of clear-eyed, hard-headed persistence that she'd gotten straight from her mother. Maybe it was time to trust Jo enough to let her find her own way.

Sam clodded in from the hallway, jarring Ellen out of her reverie. She moved around the bar and took up a place on Henricksen's other side to start in on the last couple of guns. Something about Sam Winchester itched under her skin; that contrast between sweet little boy and tunnel vision obsession that must've come straight from his daddy. He might be Dean's brother, but Ellen had a hard time trusting Sam the way she trusted his brother. She just wasn't sure what he'd do to get what he wanted.

"Are we all set?" Sam asked Dean as he inspected the symbol on the floor.

"Just about," Dean replied, sparing his brother a quick glance that might have been meant to be reassuring. He sprayed a few more lines and then stood up, brushing off his knees. "All right, we're good to go."

Sam nodded and laid a mat down on the floor, a thick, khaki-colored thing with the words "Go Away" printed in bold, dark text. Ellen guessed that he'd dug it out of Ash's room, it was just the kind of thing Ash would've thought was hilarious. In the current context it was strangely appropriate.

Henricksen slammed a clip into the butt of his gun and put it securely in the holster at his waist, leaving the strap unclipped. Ellen thought it might be the first time she'd seen him out of his Fed uniform, instead wearing well-worn jeans and a faded polo. She guessed that he wasn't here as an agent of the FBI, not today. He shared a loaded, silent look with Dean. Nope, he was here for blood and answers, not to serve and protect.

"All righty, then." Dean clapped his hands together. "Places, people."

Ellen stayed behind the bar, her natural place to be, shotgun within easy reach. Jo and Henricksen moved around to the front of the bar and took flanking positions, Jo with her shotgun and Henricksen with his handgun, jugs of holy water settled by their feet. Dean went and leaned in the corner only a few feet from the door, where the demon wouldn't see him until she'd already walked into the room, and Sam stood right out in the middle of the room, hands empty but with a gun tucked into the back of his pants.

Long minutes stretched even longer. Time ticked by, and Ellen's patience ticked with it. She could see the same frustrated need to just get it over with in the arrhythmic tapping of Jo's foot and the way that Dean slouched even further into the corner and the quiet humming that he might not even know he was making. Only Henricksen and Sam stayed silent and still as if the passage of time was nothing at all.

Dean blew a loud puff out from between his lips. "Are you sure she's coming?" he asked.

"She'll be here," Sam replied, tight and deep.

"Yeah, but when? 'Cause eventually someone's gonna have to use the bathroom. I'm just saying."

Jo snorted a laugh as Sam cut a look at his brother, shoulders stiff. "Dean—" he began, all little brother irritation. He was cut off by the crunch of gravels under a car's wheels as someone pulled a beige sedan into Roadhouse's parking lot and stopped across from the Impala; late afternoon sunlight bounced off of the windshield, obscuring the driver from view. Ellen's hand clamped onto the stock of her rifle.

Before the slam of the car door even registered, a familiar form stood shadowed in the doorway. It was go time.

"Howdy ya'll," Meg drawled, framed by the door. "Miss me?"

"Oh boy did we ever," Sam snarked, rolling his shoulders with a crack.

"Come on, Sam, don't be like that." Meg tilted her head. "So, do you have my present or do I have to hurt more of your friends?" She looked at Henricksen and smiled at the way his hand twitched on the butt of his gun.

"Come and get it," Sam said, and Ellen could hear the cocky grin in his voice.

Meg rolled her eyes. She squatted down and pulled the mat off of the devil's trap that Dean had painstakingly drawn. She looked up at Sam. "Lackluster, man. Seriously." She stood back up. "I expected better from you."

Sam shrugged. "It was worth a try. Though I guess we're at an impasse, seeing as the Colt's in here and you're stuck out there."

"Please, as if I can't hurt your little groupies from here." She raised a hand and clenched into a fist. Jo started choking. She fell to her knees, head bent, gasping for air. Ellen's heart jumped in her throat and she moved on instinct, running around the bar and landing hard on her knees by her daughter, her hands reaching uselessly with nothing that could make her baby breathe.

"Fine, fine. Just stop it," she heard Sam say under Jo's heaving panic. "Dean, break the trap."

Ellen looked over in time to see Dean squat down by the door, gun in one hand and knife in the other, and scrape a line in the paint. He jumped back up, his gun immediately on target, as Meg daintily stepped over the broken trap.

"That's better," Meg said, and Jo took a pained, strangled breath and fell against her mother's shoulder. Ellen tucked her daughter against her as Meg walked further into the room.

Sam backed up until he ran into the lip of the bar, his hands raised at his chest, and Dean circled around to flank the demon.

Meg stalked forward towards Sam. "I want the Colt, Sam. No more of these stupid games. Give it to me, now."

"No," Sam replied, voice hard.

"Why you stupid son of a bitch, I'll—" Her voice cut off and her body bounced back as if she'd hit a wall. Ellen held her breath as Meg looked up and saw it, the elaborate trap painted on the ceiling.

Dean smiled, grim as death. "Gotcha."

Victor pulled the thick rope's knot tight around Masters' wrist, securing her to what was, possibly, the last undamaged chair left in the Roadhouse, while Dean tied her left foot in the same way. Triumph bubbled in Victor's chest. By God, he was going to get some answers, for Cal's sake if nothing else.

"This really isn't necessary," Masters said to Sam, her attention on him as if they were alone in the room, as if Victor wasn't close enough to put a bullet in her head.

"Maybe, but it sure does make us feel better," Dean said with a twisted grin. He stood up from the floor, his gun a hard line at his side. "So start talking."

"My Goldman Sachs stock fell two points this morning. I really have to remember to pay Wall Street a visit when I'm done here." Meg's grin choked into a scream as the holy water that Jo threw bubbled off of her. Jo smirked off of Meg's dark look, more than happy to give back a little pain.

"Bzzzt!" Dean retorted. "Wrong answer. Let's try again." He leaned down until his face was level with hers. "Why do you want the Colt?"

"Didn't Sam tell you?" Her mouth twisted and her eyes flicked over Dean's shoulder at Sam and back again. "I guess he just doesn't trust you all that much, big brother."

Dean's fingers clenched on his thigh, Meg's dart hitting too close to home. But he didn't turn to look at Sam, just leaned closer, his mouth stretched in a rictus. "You don't get to talk about my brother that way." He stepped back and Jo threw another volley of holy water.

Masters' scream slowed to labored pants. She spit water on the floor and chuckled. "You're all too stupid to live. Of course the demons want the gun that can, oh, I don't know, kill demons. It's safer than leaving it with you chuckleheads."

"Then why dress up like a Fed? Why the charade?" Victor asked, anger thrumming through his veins. He didn't know what was worse, the mockery she'd made of everything he'd spent his life doing or the fact that she'd fooled him while doing it.

"Who said I was pretending?" She threw her head back and laughed at the blank-faced looks that surrounded her. "Don't you hicks even watch the news? We're running your precious little country into the ground and you don't even know!" Her shrieking laughs circled up through the rafters and shivered down Victor's spine. He should've known.

"This is getting us nowhere," Sam growled. He walked through the trap to the bar and grabbed a duffle leaning against it. "We're ending this." He pulled out a battered leather journal and flipped to a specific page.

"Love poetry? How sweet," Masters sneered.

"Or something." Sam's face twisted into something not quite a grin. "_Regna terrae, cantate deo, qui fertis super caelum_—"

Masters screamed and the lights flickered. Ellen looked over from where she stood watch on the door, her eyes narrowed.

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder and pulled him away, silencing Sam and stilling the room. Masters panted and spit blood out of her mouth. Victor followed Dean across the room.

"Really, Sam, an exorcism?" Dean seethed. "We're not going to get any answers from her when she's back in Hell."

"We're not going to get any answers from her at all," Sam hissed in Dean's face. "This way we can get rid of the enemy at our back and throw the Feds off our tail in one fell swoop."

"Is there a person still in there with the demon?" Victor asked, cutting the taut thread that stretched between the other men.

Dean rubbed his face. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week; Victor knew the feeling. "Yeah, probably. And it'll probably kill her." He shrugged at Victor, the corner of his mouth stretched flat. "But it's better than leaving her in there with that thing." He looked back at his brother. "Fine, but let me try to get something out of her while you're doing it."

Sam nodded and the three of them turned back to the room, to where Jo stood guard over the demon, her knuckles white around the handle of the holy water jug. "_Caeli ad Orientem, ecce dabit voce Suae, vocem virtutis, tribuite virtutem Deo_." Sam's lips rounded around the crisp, unfamiliar words. The lights flared, the one over the shrieking demon burning out and shattering. Wind whipped around the room, Jo's hair twirling in a corona around her head.

"What do you want? I'll tell you anything!" Masters shrieked. Sam's words stopped, and Masters took a sucking breath through her mouth.

"Who's your boss and what does he want? What's the big master plan?" Dean asked, voice harsh, from just behind her trembling shoulder.

"Power," Masters gasped. "Why shouldn't we run things? You've had this world for long enough and look at what you've done." Hoarse giggles bubbled in her throat. "It didn't take demons to come up with genocide and rape. That was all you special little humans."

Dean shook his head, a deep line scored down his forehead. "I don't buy it. All of a sudden you guys organize and decide to go kamikaze just to scare a bunch of humans? It doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't matter if you understand it. He's still coming." Meg smiled, blood stark and red across her teeth. "And he's going to eat you alive."

Dean nodded at Sam who started again. Latin bubbled under the noise of Masters' screams and the whistle of the rising wind. Victor put his hand on Jo's shoulder, the turmoil and nausea on her face a mirror of what writhed in his stomach.

Sam and Dean watched impassively as Masters' chair suddenly lurched across the floor, legs scraping as it jumped at right angles underneath the painted trap. Her voice stopped even though her throat was still rigid and her mouth hung open, her vocal chords blown.

"_Et fortitudinem plebi Suae. Benedictus Deus. Gloria Patri._" Sam finished and there was a moment of complete silence before a rushing and a groaning filled the room. Masters' head fell back and black smoke streamed out of her mouth, the wails of damnation in the air, and disappeared into the heptagramal symbol on the ceiling.

Silence fell on the room. Masters' body slumped in the chair, eyes open and lifeless, blood hanging from her mouth. Jo shuddered beside Victor and he squeezed her shoulder, trying to give what comfort he could when all he wanted to do was vomit.

Dean and Sam exchanged a long, charged stare, messages passed that Victor couldn't decipher. Sam eventually nodded and his shoulders relaxed. He closed the book in his hands and moved to return it to its place.

Victor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was over. They were all standing. A moment passed and then gravel shifted against gravel, the noise loud and right outside the door. Victor's eyes flew open as Ellen yelled "Dean!" from across the room, her rifle already snug against her shoulder.

A broad, dark-haired man walked in, his face hidden behind days of overgrown scruff, the spitting image of the man on the wanted bulletin still sitting on Victor's desk. He looked from Dean to the dead woman tied to the chair and then across to Sam.

"Hello boys," John Winchester said.

* * *

Everything in the Roadhouse stopped, the entire room's focus slamming into John like a car crash. Sam had seen it before—his entire life spent careening around his father's orbit, the black hole pull that no one and nothing could escape.

"Dad." The word scraped out of Dean's throat, breaking the energy that held everyone else frozen in place. Jo flinched and rebounded away to her mother's side but Henricksen moved closer to Dean, drawn by the shock and pain drawn across his friend's face.

Sam didn't move, too familiar to the thing that flared between father and eldest son, Dean's desperate need for John's approval grappling with John's drill sergeant reserve. Sam finally let himself imagine what Dean must have experienced when his family disappeared, how his world must have fallen out from under him. Sam hadn't meant to do that to his brother.

"Hey, dude," John said. His mouth softened, smiling yet not. He glanced at the body still tied to the chair. "I take it she was the bad guy."

"Yeah," Dean rasped. He took a step forward, his eyes shining.

"I didn't think I'd find you here," John whispered on his own step closer.

Dean's whole body froze. A laugh ground out of his throat, shot through with bitterness. "I bet not." His face twisted and he turned away, head bent, needing space.

John took another step towards his son but Henricksen moved into his path, a scowling wall.

Sam's face twisted into a frown at the way John's shoulders stiffened, hackles going up. Someone was going to get it now, probably him.

The storm didn't come; instead when John miraculously pulled himself back together. He turned and quirked a curious glance at Sam. "Did you get it from her, son?"

"There were some complications," Sam dodged.

"I can see that," John said in wry amusement, restlessly starting to pace around the room. "I sent you to North Platte to get a gun, not put on a show for the locals." He reached the Harvelles and stopped. "Howdy, Ellen."

Ellen slapped him across the face, the sound rung around the room. "You son of a bitch," she seethed.

John rubbed at the side of his face. "I guess I deserved that." He nodded at Jo, his eyes flickering in a way that made her lean back and pull her gun up across her chest. John's mouth quirked and he cycled away continuing his slow circuit until he and Sam stood face-to-face. "I asked you a question," he reminded his son, voice deceptively mild.

"No, I didn't get it. It's gone." Sam's face twisted. He hated failure almost more than he hated the way Dad always chewed him out after the fact.

"Did that thing get it?" John asked, glancing at the demon's empty vessel again.

"No, someone snatched it out from under both our noses. I'm still trying to track down where he sent it."

"Try harder," John bit out. "Finding that gun, stopping the hell that monster's trying to bring is more important than anything. You know that." Then, in the blink of an eye, his entire posture changed and he grinned and slapped Sam on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll find it. I have faith in you."

Sam stared at his father, too shocked to close his gaping mouth, all of the signals mixed. This wasn't going the way he thought it would at all.

He hadn't heard Dean move, didn't feel the weight of his presence until he was there, the muzzle of his gun pressed against Dad's head.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, reflexive.

"I don't know what the fuck you are," Dean growled. "But you're not John Winchester."

John stepped away, hands raised. Dean stood still, focused, gun following the trajectory of his father's head.

"Dean, son, I know you're hurt but it's me, you know it's me." Genuine pain and confusion threaded his voice. "Sam, talk your brother down."

Sam frowned and shook his head, senses pinging. He'd known, from the second he'd laid eyes on the thing in his father's body his gut had yelled at him that this thing was not his dad. He didn't need to see the way Dean's mouth twisted in on itself, the rage and despair in his brother's eyes, to know whose side he was on. Sam's mouth flattened and his hand reached towards the gun shoved in the back of his pants.

As if on cue the lights flickered, the radio in the kitchen flaring to life in a shower of static. The sound of three hammers clicked simultaneously as Henricksen, Ellen, and Sam all pointed their guns straight at John.

John blinked and his eyes flared yellow. "Guess you caught me." He smiled, all velvet and gravel. A beat passed and then the room erupted into chaos. Dean slammed backwards against the wall and hung there and the other three fired, but their bullets only hit air. Ellen and Jo were thrown hodgepodge across the room, a thick crack sounding on impact just before Ellen screamed. Sam was thrown over the bar, his head slapping against its lip, blood welling to the surface and down his face. He lay still for a moment, dizzy and disoriented.

"Look at Daddy's good little soldier," John whispered to Dean, his voice slipping through the haze around Sam's brain, focusing him and bringing him back. "But you weren't good enough, were you? He still threw you away."

"And I just bet you were the apple of your dad's eye." The lilt of Dean's voice, the humor pasted over the pain, pulled Sam back to himself. His hand reached for the knife strapped to his calf, hidden underneath his jeans. He had only brought it just in case, didn't trust the hands he'd gotten it from, but that bastard had his brother.

He stood, slowly, and inched around the bar. Henricksen lay crumpled on the floor, dead or unconscious, and Ellen and Jo sat propped against the far wall, Ellen cradling her right arm in her left, pain creasing her face. Sam put all of that to the periphery and focused on the only two who mattered. The demon in his father's body stood right in front of his brother, only a handbreadth between them. Sam would end this.

"Believe you, me," the demon said, "I learned everything my daddy had to teach me, and more." He leaned towards Dean's ear. "I'm going to enjoy teaching you everything I know." He stepped back and Dean gasped as blood dripped from his nose.

Sam was almost there, almost close enough to stick the knife, the weapon that was all he had left, whether he trusted it or not, between that thing's ribs. He took a step and suddenly was flying across the room, slamming into the wall so hard that his ribs creaked and his hand opened. The knife streaked across the room and landed in John's outstretched arm.

The demon in John's body turned it over, inspected the blade and the sigils carved into it. He tsked lightly and shook his head. He sauntered over to Sam, leaving Dean pinned and bleeding on the wall. "Where did you get this, Sammy? You should be careful what you play with. You could get cut."

"Or I could cut you, you son of a bitch," Sam seethed.

"Temper, temper," the demon remonstrated, shaking the knife in his face like a finger. "I have big plans for you, son, but that won't stop me from teaching you the hard lessons."

"I'm not your son," Sam growled. He pushed with his mind, the elusive power slipping through his grip, still not sure about the things Ruby had shown him.

John only chuckled, unmoved. "You're more my blood than you know." He patted Sam's cheek. "You keep on eating your Wheaties and maybe we'll make something of you yet."

Behind him, Henricksen groaned on the floor, his arms twitched. John frowned. "We need a little more privacy for this intimate family reunion." And Henricksen spun across the floor, slamming into the Harvelles, Ellen's breath knocked out in a noise beyond pain. The demon flipped its finger and a line of fire flared up, separating one group from the other.

Dean chuckled, a hoarse, painful noise, and spit blood on the floor. "Wow, look at you, big man on campus."

John stepped back to Dean in a few loping strides. "You shouldn't be so glib, boy."

"Yeah, sure." Dean cocked an eyebrow. "And you're just gonna fuck my shit up, aren't ya?"

"And that'll just be the beginning," the demon murmured. The fire crackled higher, washing them all in orange light. John smiled and Dean screamed.

The demon raised the knife and Sam shrieked, panic taking hold. He couldn't lose his brother, not like this. Suddenly the piercing cries stopped and John's shoulders slumped.

"No, I won't let you," John ground out and Sam knew that voice, couldn't believe he'd been tricked by the demon's facsimile.

Between one breath and the next John stabbed the knife into his own gut. He fell to the ground and shouted, black smoke pouring out of his mouth, body tense. Then, with a jolt, he stilled.

And then Sam was free. He moved, his mind focused on getting Dean out of there. His heart stuttered as Dean pulled himself to his feet, his face shuttered and his movements stiff with pain.

Dean grabbed at John's shoulders and pulled, a grunt that was almost a groan spilling out of him. He looked at Sam but Sam was already there, hefting Dad up by the shoulders while Dean picked up his legs.

Together they fell out the door as the fire raged around them.

* * *

Dean couldn't feel his body. He was in shock, all of the symptoms clicking through his jumbled brain. But louder than all of that was the mantra, his only prayer _Dad can't be dead, Dad can't be dead, Dad can't be dead__,_ on a never-ending loop.

He and Sam made it across the Roadhouse's parking lot, fire blowing out the windows behind them. Dean couldn't think about the Harvelles or Victor. He hoped they were okay, but it was all he could do to hold onto Dad's swaying legs and stay on his feet. He couldn't save them, could hardly save himself.

They laid their dad down on the grass. Dean's breath caught at the groan the movement pulled out of Dad's chest. Dean fell to his knees beside him. "Dad?"

"Dean," Dad breathed. Dean grabbed the hand that flopped towards him and held on tight. "You okay?"

"Yeah, Dad." Dean looked up at his brother's soot-streaked face. "Sam too."

"Good." John breathed a shuddering breath. Dean glanced at the dark stain that pooled across his father's stomach. Sam kneeled down, pulled off his shirt and pressed it against the wound; heedless of the way Dad winced.

John's grip tightened, and Dean looked back at his face. "I'm sorry," John said. "I never should've done it, never should've gone away."

"It's okay," Dean said because he could do this, could finally forgive his father. He always would.

"No it's not." John smiled around a wince. "You were right, what you said all those years ago. We are stronger as a family."

"Okay, yeah, okay," Dean babbled.

Dad jerked hard, hand almost pulling out of Dean's hold. "Dean? Sammy?" He called, terrified.

"We're right here, Dad," Sam said, tears choking his words. He pulled a hand away from the makeshift bandage to grasp his father's shoulder.

"We've got you," Dean soothed.

Their father's eyes widened in panic and then he smiled, relaxing. "Mary," he breathed and looked, for a moment, like the dad Dean remembered from all those years ago, the one who thrown him footballs and snuck him cookies before bed. He rasped out another breath and then stilled, his grip loosening in his sons' hands.

"No," Sam gasped. "No, no, no, no, no." Tears ran down his face.

Dean bowed his head over his dead father's shoulder and let himself cry.

He didn't know how long he sat like that, inferno burning behind him, but eventually a step sounded behind him and a hand landed on his shoulder. Dean looked up, but the will to fight whomever this was leached from him.

Victor gazed down, his face somber. "I'm so sorry, Dean."

Relief spiked through Dean, pushing at the darkness that threatened to drown him. "Ellen? Jo?"

"Ellen's arm is broken, but Jo is okay." Victor nodded his head toward where the two women stood, arms around each other, watching their home burn.

Dean looked at Sam, who was wiping tears and snot off of his face, his emotions open and violent, just like they'd always been. Sam nodded at Dean's silent question and they stood. They picked their father's body up and carried him to the fire, his funeral pyre.

Afterwards they joined their friends. They stood together for a while and watched the blaze, something dying and something being born.

Eventually Sam turned to Dean and Dean could read the change, the firm resolve in the set of Sam's jaw and the square of his shoulders. "We have to get out of here before the authorities show up."

Understanding shone bright in Dean's mind, clear for the first time in years. People depended on his little brother, followed him and believed in him. They needed the man that Sam had become. And maybe Dean was ready to have faith in something, too, to trust that Sam would always be his family regardless of where he was or whom he was with.

He could let him go.

"Yeah we do, but not together." Dean laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "I get it now, I really do. I've been playing ostrich for too long." He glanced at where Jo was watching them. "You have important work to do, people who need you, and I can't be the reason you fail them."

"But you're my brother. I need you," Sam demanded, forehead creased.

Dean squeezed his shoulder "I'll always be your brother. But I can't go with you, not right now. I think this is something you have to do on your own." He took a deep breath, seeing that there was a place for him in all of this as well. "And, hell, maybe I've got a thing or two of my own to take care of."

Sam grabbed Dean and wrapped him into a hug. Dean held on tight, the four-year-old that he would always be still needing to protect his baby brother, or be protected by him. "I don't want to lose you," Sam whispered against is neck.

"You're not, I promise." Dean swiped at his eyes and stepped back. "Now get out of here, before I change my mind. And this time pick up your goddamn phone every once in a while."

Sam's face broke into a tiny grin and he nodded. He finally had his brother back.

Sam turned to look at Jo. Jo's eyes flicked to her mom and she shook her head, the refusal clear on her face. But Ellen pushed against her, using her shoulder to shove her daughter away.

"I'll be fine. You go be the woman I taught you to be," Ellen stated. "I'll be fine," she repeated more softly, the lines of her face gentling into a mother's smile.

Jo nodded, eyes bright in the firelight. She grabbed Ellen and held her tight for a long moment before pulling away with a kiss on her mother's cheek. Jo turned, and she and Sam walked off into the darkness.

Sirens sounded in the distance, a day late and a dollar short. Victor came over and stood by Dean.

"So what now?"

A part of Dean wanted to lie down on the ground and never get back up; a part of him wanted to pretend that none of this had ever happened—not Stanford, not the Roadhouse, none of it. But he'd never let himself take the easy way out before. And, anyway, a plan was starting to form. "Now we go looking for that gun." Dean cocked an eyebrow at his friend. "That is, if you're in."

"Oh, I'm all in. I'm pretty sure my days at the Bureau are numbered." Victor cocked his head towards Ellen. "And Ellen said she'd look after Cal for me, make sure he doesn't take anymore stupid risks."

"Okay." Warmth spread in Dean's chest and he wanted to smile, though he wasn't quite ready. "Let's hit the road. We've got work to do."

Together they walked deeper into the shadows cast by the setting sun. Dean ran his hand up his car's side, still firm and steady after all these years. The Impala's doors squeaked and her engine rumbled beneath them, happy to be back on the hunt. They peeled out and sped off down the road.


	5. Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

**Epilogue – Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship**

"This is a bad fucking idea." Victor glared at the back of Dean's head from where he was seated on top of a rickety old table wedged in the corner of Bobby Singer's Panic Room. Winchester had a habit of pulling deeply stupid shit, but Victor had a feeling that this was going to be the dumbest thing he'd watched his buddy do yet.

Of course, if Victor weren't a huge fucking moron he'd be back at the FBI with Cal and wouldn't even know that shit like demons and rugarus existed. So he was pretty pissed off at himself, too.

"Come on, man," Dean said, standing up from where he'd been crouched drawing a sigil on the floor. He brushed off his knees and speared Victor with one of those forthright, bull-stubborn looks of his. "This thing has been trailing us for God knows how long and busting up gas station windows and motel room mirrors is one thing—"

"And practically disintegrating your ear drums," Victor interjected though Dean didn't seem to notice.

"But after what it did to Pamela it's gotta go down. We've let this shit go on for long enough." Dean shrugged. "I don't know what you're bitching about, it's not like anything can get to us while we're in this room."

"So why is it even going to show up?" Victor asked, again, because he could not let his discomfort go. He also knew himself well enough to recognize that part of his bitching stemmed from the fact that they were dealing with something that neither Dean nor Singer had heard of. A knot of nervous energy thrummed in the pit of his stomach that would turn into out-and-out fear if he let it. He'd seen a lot of scary shit in the past year and a half, but it had always been quantifiable, known by someone he trusted, and this mysterious menace was something else entirely.

Dean just rolled his eyes. "We've been over this, dude. Maybe it won't show, but if it only makes an appearance outside the door we'll at least know what the fucker looks like, which is a lot more than we've got now."

"Beyond how it can burn people's eyes out of their heads."

"Yeah, beyond that." Dean grimaced, clearly weighed down by the same heavy responsibility Victor felt.

Victor grumbled but chose to pick up a nearby knife rather than rehash the same worked over territory. If he didn't agree with the fundamentals of Dean's argument he wouldn't be here, he'd be out at the hospital with Singer waiting for word on Pamela. But being here didn't mean he hated all of it any less.

Dean performed the summoning ritual. The acrid smell of burning herbs made Victor cough as it wafted through the Panic Room. Hunting was frigging disgusting. Give him a good CSI unit any day of the week, or one of the labs down at Quantico. He missed cleanliness and sterility.

The smoke cleared and nothing happened. Dean sat down in a hard-backed chair and pulled the Colt out of the back of his pants, eyes fixed on the cracked open door, and still nothing happened. Victor started honing the edge of the knife in his hand, foot jiggling with nervous tension and Dean spun the Colt's bullet chamber while even more nothing happened.

"I know I did the damn thing right," Dean grumped when Victor looked up and gave him a pointed look.

"I told you it wouldn't—" Victor started, but was cut off by the lights suddenly exploding around him. He and Dean jumped to their feet. Victor grabbed a nearby shotgun and pointed it at the Panic Room door, the barrel quickly joined by the Colt held in Dean's steady hand.

The room went dark, the only light filtered down from the fan in the ceiling or creeped in through the slit to the basement beyond. Victor's breath sounded harsh in his own ears as he stared at where the door was cracked open. A tinge of electricity filled the room, reminding Victor of the first storm he'd seen roll in across the prairie, dark clouds overwhelming and inevitable.

The door slowly screeched fully open, and revealed a slight, trench-coat wearing man striding forward with grim purpose. He stepped through the traps and sigils as if they weren't there, didn't seem to be discomforted by either the iron or the salt. Nothing slowed his measured, headlong pace.

_This isn't possible!_ pounded through Victor's head, but he ignored the thought and the panic that went with it and fired his gun, the booming sound echoing through the claustrophobic room. It hit the man dead center in the chest and didn't slow him one bit. Dean fired the Colt, a shot in the chest and a shot in the head, but the man didn't stop coming.

The man calmly pulled the shotgun right out of Victor's hands, impervious to the burning hot metal of the barrel, and threw it across the room. He turned in time to catch a knife from Dean square in the throat. He calmly pulled it out, a smear of blood the only evidence of the attack.

"What are you?" Dean gasped, his face tight in a way that Victor knew meant Dean was freaking the fuck out underneath. It was nice to know that Dean was finally joining the "We're all gonna die now" club.

"I am an angel of the Lord," the man serenely replied. He looked from Dean to Victor and then back again; his gaze cool and direct and crackling with a fire that seared. "We have work for you."


End file.
